4 ms·

Ha. It's a trick to point out that there are well-known, easy-to-understand, rigorous models to measure this kind of this, which the author has declined to use?

Ha. It's a trick to point out that there are well-known, easy-to-understand, rigorous models to measure this kind of this, which the author has declined to use? Why bother with spreadsheets at all then? If the author is going to do a bunch of arithmetic to convince us that some conclusion is correct, shouldn't we ask that he actually perform relevant and useful arithmetic? 1 + 3 = 4 See? I just proved that we should spend eleventy brazillion dollars on K12 education next year.

whatshisface 5y ago
>shouldn't we ask that he actually perform relevant and useful arithmetic? This is a great point, but has anyone looked at the spreadsheet yet to see for themselves? I think we're proving him right so far, haha.
- labcomputer 5y ago
  > but has anyone looked at the spreadsheet yet to see for themselves? I think we're proving him right so far, haha. But we aren't. The author has described his method in words. My contention is that the method he described does not pass the bar for good science. If my contention is correct, then it simply does not matter what is or is not in his spreadsheets. Here's an analogy: If I told you that I determined the safest car on the road by measuring the distance to the moon, and that I had very very good spreadsheets for measuring the distance to the moon, would you really bother to check my spreadsheets? I don't think you would. I think you would (correctly) say, "Hey, that's a really dumb way to figure out the safest car on the road and I'm not going to bother to check your math." Now, I don't think that the author has done something quite that orthogonal to his stated goal, but I also don't think it's close enough that I want to bother checking his math.
pas 5y ago
Okay, so is his claim that "nobody cared about my spreadsheets" is simply incorrect, because people cared very much about them, by pointing out that they are useless, because they are not doing causal inference ... or what's going on? :o

whatshisface 5y ago

>shouldn't we ask that he actually perform relevant and useful arithmetic? This is a great point, but has anyone looked at the spreadsheet yet to see for themselves? I think we're proving him right so far, haha.

labcomputer 5y ago
> but has anyone looked at the spreadsheet yet to see for themselves? I think we're proving him right so far, haha. But we aren't. The author has described his method in words. My contention is that the method he described does not pass the bar for good science. If my contention is correct, then it simply does not matter what is or is not in his spreadsheets. Here's an analogy: If I told you that I determined the safest car on the road by measuring the distance to the moon, and that I had very very good spreadsheets for measuring the distance to the moon, would you really bother to check my spreadsheets? I don't think you would. I think you would (correctly) say, "Hey, that's a really dumb way to figure out the safest car on the road and I'm not going to bother to check your math." Now, I don't think that the author has done something quite that orthogonal to his stated goal, but I also don't think it's close enough that I want to bother checking his math.

pas 5y ago

Okay, so is his claim that "nobody cared about my spreadsheets" is simply incorrect, because people cared very much about them, by pointing out that they are useless, because they are not doing causal inference ... or what's going on? :o