6 ms·

Instead of giving in to a gut reaction, you should read the paper. All research must get funding in one way or another. If you exclude research due to funding s

by Clanan 9y ago

Instead of giving in to a gut reaction, you should read the paper. All research must get funding in one way or another. If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much. If the majority of research is tainted by conflicts, that doesn't somehow make it any less tainted by conflicts. It's trivially easy to design a study to produce the results you want it to, just by selecting things like accounting methods at the outset. For example, one method of accounting is to allocate costs based on usage. So if you have a car and you drive it 90% for Uber and 10% for your own usage, allocate 90% of all costs to Uber. That makes Uber look really bad. But if you would have bought the car either way and the question is the incremental cost of driving for Uber, that accounting method is the sunk cost fallacy. It allocates large fractions of a bunch of fixed costs to the incremental use, like the original purchase price of the car, even though they're sunk and can't be avoided either way. And the money actually does taint the study, because the funders know the parameters of the study ahead of time and only fund the ones that will produce the results they want, which makes the results tainted by selection bias.
- elgenie 9y ago
  You could also read the methodology in the study when it comes out, since describing that is required in science, as opposed to questioning hypothetical methodologies that could be used. From the brief version of the study (http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf), it appears they're using per-mile costs and ascribing only the incremental costs on a per-mile basis. > Of the five sources of cost estimated per mile (Insurance, Maintenance, Repairs, Fuel and Depreciation), approximately 40% of costs are attributable to Insurance, Maintenance and Repairs, 40% to fuel expenses, and 20% to depreciation.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    You are correct that I used a hypothetical methodology. That's because -- and this is the real problem -- finding the flaw in a specific methodology is a lot of work. It's often not just one thing that throws the numbers off by 200%, it's one thing that throws them off by 12%, then another by 7%, and twenty other little things that add and multiply up to an inaccurate overall conclusion. It can take multiple hours to figure out what actually happened and people don't have that kind of time, so the majority of people only have time to read the conclusion and who sponsored it. In theory the solution to the problem of everyone having to personally evaluate every study is for a trustworthy reporter to do it for you, but that hasn't worked ever since reporters figured out that "Uber eats souls" gets more clicks than "wage study methodology miscalculates wages." But if you want a real flaw in this study, how about this one -- most other jobs don't let you count transportation expenses against the hourly wage. Obviously an Uber driver's transportation expenses will be higher, but that doesn't mean you can discount them in the other cases when you count them in this case. If someone has a 30 mile commute (because living closer to work is even more expensive) at $0.53/mile, that's 60 miles a day, so $31.80 in daily incremental expenses to take the job. 8 hours at federal minimum wage ($7.25/hr) is $58, so after transportation expenses their hourly wage is $3.28/hour. For someone with a 50 mile commute it's $0.63/hour. Suddenly Uber doesn't look so bad.
    - malandrew 9y ago
      > most other jobs don't let you count transportation expenses against the hourly wage Good job in pointing out this huge flaw in this study. Every minimum wage job I ever worked required me to have a vehicle to get to and from that job. That means that every minimum wage job out there where you need to pay for transportation to get to it is paying below minimum wage as the end the day. Those who live in cities have the benefit of public transportation but also have the time cost of being slower and reduces the number of waking hours they can earn money. What's the hours lost commuting averaged across and subtracted against the number of worked?
      - eevilspock 9y ago
- Clanan 9y ago
  Nothing you said refutes my claim. All research requires some sort of funding. Humans have biases which can affect their judgment/work. If you think potential conflicts should automatically make a paper worthless, then you're basically excluding the vast majority of scientific work. Read the paper and decide whether its methodology and results are valid and correct. Don't just look at a list of sponsors and walk away - that's just intellectual laziness.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > Don't just look at a list of sponsors and walk away - that's just intellectual laziness. Is everyone supposed to personally fully read every individual scientific study? That doesn't scale. The only way it works is to have experts you trust to give you the truth, which is what the scientists are supposed to be, but the funding source undermines the trust.
    - mygo 9y ago
      Nah, you’re just lazy. You’re not supposed to read every single piece of research in existence. No one person does that. Not even the scientists. But if the topic interests you enough for you to comment about it and there is a research paper that you can read, then just read the dang paper or let other people make decisions for you. Nobody has to give you the truth. And, on top of that, even if the results of research are quantified, there may not even be an unquestionable “truth” — the implications of the research can still be up to interpretation.
      - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
        > Nobody has to give you the truth. Then you have to figure it out for yourself. For everything. Which, again, doesn't scale. At some point you do need to trust some people to make some decisions for you. But what kind of fool trusts someone with a conflict of interest?
        mygo 9y ago
TangoTrotFox 9y ago
How exactly would you suggest people read the paper? The article linked to a brief [1] which says literally absolutely nothing about how they conjured up their numbers. And the paper itself is here [2]. It's rather worse than a paywall. Instead the paper is restricted to their "sponsors" until an embargo of up to 6 months. This sort of behavior should not instill confidence in the paper's conclusions. And I think it was completely reckless of the Guardian to run an eye catching headline with absolutely 0 justification given to the numbers other than an implicit appeal to authority by calling it an MIT paper. Though such is the state of the media today. [1] - http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf [2] - http://ceepr.mit.edu/publications/working-papers/681 http://ceepr.mit.edu/publications/working-papers/681
- shakna 9y ago
  I'm not sure if it's purposeful, or how long the hole will remain open, but you can see the full paper. Remove the "-Brief". [0] The paper is fairly open about their methodology, and give access to things like the actual survey being answered, rather than just saying "a survey matching these criteria was used". Most of their data apparently has come through Harry Campbell [1], and his yearly survey, which has it's own data and methodology out in the open [2]. I'm not remotely qualified to analyse it, but you can see the data from therideshareguy's survey if you're looking to critique the results of this paper. (I've edited this paragraph to try and get less push/offensive. I'm still not happy with it, but the aphasia is kicking my butt. Rest assured, I'm just trying to be helpful, and just wanted to point the direction to discussing the data. Still not happy with this phrasing either.) [0] http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005.pdf [1] https://therideshareguy.com https://therideshareguy.com [2] https://therideshareguy.com/2018SurveyReport https://therideshareguy.com/2018SurveyReport
- slaymaker1907 9y ago
  In other words, the paper is currently less than worthless since it can easily mislead people. At this point, it is little more than an appeal to authority.
- Clanan 9y ago
crdoconnor 9y ago
>Instead of giving in to a gut reaction, you should read the paper. All research must get funding in one way or another. If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much. It makes sense to try and figure out what the funders would want the answer to be and see if the research matches that. If it does, shouldn't you be more skeptical? For example, if Exxon funded research saying that global warming isn't caused by man or Walmart funded research saying that raising the minimum wage causes mass unemployment then it's pretty clear that they would benefit from the result. In this example it looks like these companies probably just want to be associated with MIT (or they have an interest in other pieces of research) and I can't see any particular reason to suppose that they'd be invested in the outcome of this study in particular.
- Clanan 9y ago
  Every patron of every piece of research is hoping to benefit from it. I certainly agree that a reader should consider the goals of the authors and backers, and I would hope the authors would make both clear. I just get piqued when intellectual laziness steps in and says "don't read this, it's funded by biased sponsors (i.e. humans)!"
  - randall 9y ago
    I think this is a very salient point... it's essentially ad hominem and I'm tempted to fall into this fallacy. Thanks!
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    >Every patron of every piece of research is hoping to benefit from it. A) Not always. Bill Gates funding malaria research doesn't benefit him. B) If you benefit from the research being accurate and truthful that's very different to only benefitting if the research yields a particular answer.

by Clanan 9y ago

AnthonyMouse 9y ago

> If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much. If the majority of research is tainted by conflicts, that doesn't somehow make it any less tainted by conflicts. It's trivially easy to design a study to produce the results you want it to, just by selecting things like accounting methods at the outset. For example, one method of accounting is to allocate costs based on usage. So if you have a car and you drive it 90% for Uber and 10% for your own usage, allocate 90% of all costs to Uber. That makes Uber look really bad. But if you would have bought the car either way and the question is the incremental cost of driving for Uber, that accounting method is the sunk cost fallacy. It allocates large fractions of a bunch of fixed costs to the incremental use, like the original purchase price of the car, even though they're sunk and can't be avoided either way. And the money actually does taint the study, because the funders know the parameters of the study ahead of time and only fund the ones that will produce the results they want, which makes the results tainted by selection bias.

elgenie 9y ago
You could also read the methodology in the study when it comes out, since describing that is required in science, as opposed to questioning hypothetical methodologies that could be used. From the brief version of the study (http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf), it appears they're using per-mile costs and ascribing only the incremental costs on a per-mile basis. > Of the five sources of cost estimated per mile (Insurance, Maintenance, Repairs, Fuel and Depreciation), approximately 40% of costs are attributable to Insurance, Maintenance and Repairs, 40% to fuel expenses, and 20% to depreciation.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  You are correct that I used a hypothetical methodology. That's because -- and this is the real problem -- finding the flaw in a specific methodology is a lot of work. It's often not just one thing that throws the numbers off by 200%, it's one thing that throws them off by 12%, then another by 7%, and twenty other little things that add and multiply up to an inaccurate overall conclusion. It can take multiple hours to figure out what actually happened and people don't have that kind of time, so the majority of people only have time to read the conclusion and who sponsored it. In theory the solution to the problem of everyone having to personally evaluate every study is for a trustworthy reporter to do it for you, but that hasn't worked ever since reporters figured out that "Uber eats souls" gets more clicks than "wage study methodology miscalculates wages." But if you want a real flaw in this study, how about this one -- most other jobs don't let you count transportation expenses against the hourly wage. Obviously an Uber driver's transportation expenses will be higher, but that doesn't mean you can discount them in the other cases when you count them in this case. If someone has a 30 mile commute (because living closer to work is even more expensive) at $0.53/mile, that's 60 miles a day, so $31.80 in daily incremental expenses to take the job. 8 hours at federal minimum wage ($7.25/hr) is $58, so after transportation expenses their hourly wage is $3.28/hour. For someone with a 50 mile commute it's $0.63/hour. Suddenly Uber doesn't look so bad.
  - malandrew 9y ago
    > most other jobs don't let you count transportation expenses against the hourly wage Good job in pointing out this huge flaw in this study. Every minimum wage job I ever worked required me to have a vehicle to get to and from that job. That means that every minimum wage job out there where you need to pay for transportation to get to it is paying below minimum wage as the end the day. Those who live in cities have the benefit of public transportation but also have the time cost of being slower and reduces the number of waking hours they can earn money. What's the hours lost commuting averaged across and subtracted against the number of worked?
    - eevilspock 9y ago
Clanan 9y ago
Nothing you said refutes my claim. All research requires some sort of funding. Humans have biases which can affect their judgment/work. If you think potential conflicts should automatically make a paper worthless, then you're basically excluding the vast majority of scientific work. Read the paper and decide whether its methodology and results are valid and correct. Don't just look at a list of sponsors and walk away - that's just intellectual laziness.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > Don't just look at a list of sponsors and walk away - that's just intellectual laziness. Is everyone supposed to personally fully read every individual scientific study? That doesn't scale. The only way it works is to have experts you trust to give you the truth, which is what the scientists are supposed to be, but the funding source undermines the trust.
  - mygo 9y ago
    Nah, you’re just lazy. You’re not supposed to read every single piece of research in existence. No one person does that. Not even the scientists. But if the topic interests you enough for you to comment about it and there is a research paper that you can read, then just read the dang paper or let other people make decisions for you. Nobody has to give you the truth. And, on top of that, even if the results of research are quantified, there may not even be an unquestionable “truth” — the implications of the research can still be up to interpretation.
    - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      > Nobody has to give you the truth. Then you have to figure it out for yourself. For everything. Which, again, doesn't scale. At some point you do need to trust some people to make some decisions for you. But what kind of fool trusts someone with a conflict of interest?
      - mygo 9y ago

TangoTrotFox 9y ago

How exactly would you suggest people read the paper? The article linked to a brief [1] which says literally absolutely nothing about how they conjured up their numbers. And the paper itself is here [2]. It's rather worse than a paywall. Instead the paper is restricted to their "sponsors" until an embargo of up to 6 months. This sort of behavior should not instill confidence in the paper's conclusions. And I think it was completely reckless of the Guardian to run an eye catching headline with absolutely 0 justification given to the numbers other than an implicit appeal to authority by calling it an MIT paper. Though such is the state of the media today. [1] - http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005-Brief.pdf [2] - http://ceepr.mit.edu/publications/working-papers/681 http://ceepr.mit.edu/publications/working-papers/681

shakna 9y ago
I'm not sure if it's purposeful, or how long the hole will remain open, but you can see the full paper. Remove the "-Brief". [0] The paper is fairly open about their methodology, and give access to things like the actual survey being answered, rather than just saying "a survey matching these criteria was used". Most of their data apparently has come through Harry Campbell [1], and his yearly survey, which has it's own data and methodology out in the open [2]. I'm not remotely qualified to analyse it, but you can see the data from therideshareguy's survey if you're looking to critique the results of this paper. (I've edited this paragraph to try and get less push/offensive. I'm still not happy with it, but the aphasia is kicking my butt. Rest assured, I'm just trying to be helpful, and just wanted to point the direction to discussing the data. Still not happy with this phrasing either.) [0] http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005.pdf http://ceepr.mit.edu/files/papers/2018-005.pdf [1] https://therideshareguy.com https://therideshareguy.com [2] https://therideshareguy.com/2018SurveyReport https://therideshareguy.com/2018SurveyReport
slaymaker1907 9y ago
In other words, the paper is currently less than worthless since it can easily mislead people. At this point, it is little more than an appeal to authority.
Clanan 9y ago

crdoconnor 9y ago

>Instead of giving in to a gut reaction, you should read the paper. All research must get funding in one way or another. If you exclude research due to funding sources and potential conflicts of interest, you wouldn't be left with much. It makes sense to try and figure out what the funders would want the answer to be and see if the research matches that. If it does, shouldn't you be more skeptical? For example, if Exxon funded research saying that global warming isn't caused by man or Walmart funded research saying that raising the minimum wage causes mass unemployment then it's pretty clear that they would benefit from the result. In this example it looks like these companies probably just want to be associated with MIT (or they have an interest in other pieces of research) and I can't see any particular reason to suppose that they'd be invested in the outcome of this study in particular.

Clanan 9y ago
Every patron of every piece of research is hoping to benefit from it. I certainly agree that a reader should consider the goals of the authors and backers, and I would hope the authors would make both clear. I just get piqued when intellectual laziness steps in and says "don't read this, it's funded by biased sponsors (i.e. humans)!"
- randall 9y ago
  I think this is a very salient point... it's essentially ad hominem and I'm tempted to fall into this fallacy. Thanks!
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >Every patron of every piece of research is hoping to benefit from it. A) Not always. Bill Gates funding malaria research doesn't benefit him. B) If you benefit from the research being accurate and truthful that's very different to only benefitting if the research yields a particular answer.