4 ms·

Would it be ok if they warned that it's just for entertainment? I enjoy reading these types of articles, and in my next project, I was planning to do something

by afpx 4y ago

Would it be ok if they warned that it's just for entertainment? I enjoy reading these types of articles, and in my next project, I was planning to do something similar.

Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
> Would it be ok if they warned that it's just for entertainment? I mean they were always ok, but the problem is presenting some silly fun data analysis as "science". If you counted how many people have red hats in your way to work and publish it as a blog it can be fun. If suddenly far right groups start making posts about how your red hat stats correlate with immigration and theft statistics then your post is not the problem, but there is a problem. same with the OkCupid blog. I have 0 issue with their work (albeit they could show their work cause a lot looked incredibly amateurish), but the talking points that came from it are still being repeatedly wrongly 10 years later and did real damage.
- kikokikokiko 4y ago
  "presenting some silly fun data analysis as "science"" Their silly data analysis had a sample that was probably orders of magnitude larger than any cohort an university paper could dream of getting their hands on, but yeah, it was just a silly fun data analysis.
  - Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
    > Their silly data analysis had a sample that was probably orders of magnitude larger than any cohort an university paper could dream of getting their hands on and yet their sample was incredibly biased despite it being large. A big set of data still churns out bad results. Most of their blog posts did not show the data, how they normalised it, percentage of each group. They just run regression on it and anything with p<00.5 that seemed fun was published. Which was fun, but its not good science, its hardly science at all. There is a reason why blog posts and published results have different standards (and also why most sociological/psychological results are impossible to reproduce having one of the largest reproduction crisis of any science)
    - kikokikokiko 4y ago
      So, after sampling the interactions of 1.51 million people, and analysing the amount of messages an average tall woman receives compared to an average short woman, the conclusion that "taller women, on average, are less attractive to the average male than short women" is invalid? Please, tell me how this is absurd, when it's basically what you see in real life. Or that men that make more money are more attractive to women, on average? This delusion of denying facts when it does not conform to your own sense of what is "fair" is just childish.
      - Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
        > Analysing the amount of messages an average tall woman receives compared to an average short woman, the conclusion that "taller women, on average, are less attractive to the average male than short women" is invalid? It isn't invalid, but its also not science. If you have 1000 short girls and 3 girls over 6'4 well you got an issue of normalising values. Where variance of results are more affected near the edge cases than the median. The problem is not the results, its that on a vaccum they are contextless, and that is what makes the silly fun data anlysis. > Or that men that make more money are more attractive to women, on average? Yeah because if they wanted to date someone broke they could find them outside. Online dating is a fraction of their total dating behaviour, therefore conclusions are not conclusive. If you want actual studies about it, women prefer a stable job over wealth. Aka a dude with 100k normal salary has a better chance than an unemplyed dude with 1 million dollars. This is something that cannot be found through OkCupid cause networth isn't even a question or filter on their analysis. > This delusion of denying facts I am not denying facts, i have just done science past running a database through matlab.
      - pksebben 4y ago
        because they're all people who signed up for okcupid, who were actively using okcupid to date at the time. the amount of pressure this puts on the sampling is hard to understate. not only are you looking at a highly truncated set of interpersonal dynamics (what you can tell about someone based on a dating profile is far less than what you can tell by meeting real people in meat space), you're specifically selecting for people who have been as of yet unsuccessful IRL. you're also selecting for people who wish to take a fairly serious shortcut around personal interaction. given these factors, it would be both crazy and stupid to believe you can generalize about human nature anything you get from a dating app. as for "what you see in real life", might I suggest that you, yourself, are also constrained to a perspective that doesn't necessarily match other people's perspectives, and that maybe, just maybe, you are also seeing a biased sample of the world which is both the result and cause of difficulties with interpersonal interactions?

by afpx 4y ago

Would it be ok if they warned that it's just for entertainment? I enjoy reading these types of articles, and in my next project, I was planning to do something similar.

Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago

> Would it be ok if they warned that it's just for entertainment? I mean they were always ok, but the problem is presenting some silly fun data analysis as "science". If you counted how many people have red hats in your way to work and publish it as a blog it can be fun. If suddenly far right groups start making posts about how your red hat stats correlate with immigration and theft statistics then your post is not the problem, but there is a problem. same with the OkCupid blog. I have 0 issue with their work (albeit they could show their work cause a lot looked incredibly amateurish), but the talking points that came from it are still being repeatedly wrongly 10 years later and did real damage.

kikokikokiko 4y ago
"presenting some silly fun data analysis as "science"" Their silly data analysis had a sample that was probably orders of magnitude larger than any cohort an university paper could dream of getting their hands on, but yeah, it was just a silly fun data analysis.
- Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
  > Their silly data analysis had a sample that was probably orders of magnitude larger than any cohort an university paper could dream of getting their hands on and yet their sample was incredibly biased despite it being large. A big set of data still churns out bad results. Most of their blog posts did not show the data, how they normalised it, percentage of each group. They just run regression on it and anything with p<00.5 that seemed fun was published. Which was fun, but its not good science, its hardly science at all. There is a reason why blog posts and published results have different standards (and also why most sociological/psychological results are impossible to reproduce having one of the largest reproduction crisis of any science)
  - kikokikokiko 4y ago
    So, after sampling the interactions of 1.51 million people, and analysing the amount of messages an average tall woman receives compared to an average short woman, the conclusion that "taller women, on average, are less attractive to the average male than short women" is invalid? Please, tell me how this is absurd, when it's basically what you see in real life. Or that men that make more money are more attractive to women, on average? This delusion of denying facts when it does not conform to your own sense of what is "fair" is just childish.
    - Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
      > Analysing the amount of messages an average tall woman receives compared to an average short woman, the conclusion that "taller women, on average, are less attractive to the average male than short women" is invalid? It isn't invalid, but its also not science. If you have 1000 short girls and 3 girls over 6'4 well you got an issue of normalising values. Where variance of results are more affected near the edge cases than the median. The problem is not the results, its that on a vaccum they are contextless, and that is what makes the silly fun data anlysis. > Or that men that make more money are more attractive to women, on average? Yeah because if they wanted to date someone broke they could find them outside. Online dating is a fraction of their total dating behaviour, therefore conclusions are not conclusive. If you want actual studies about it, women prefer a stable job over wealth. Aka a dude with 100k normal salary has a better chance than an unemplyed dude with 1 million dollars. This is something that cannot be found through OkCupid cause networth isn't even a question or filter on their analysis. > This delusion of denying facts I am not denying facts, i have just done science past running a database through matlab.
    - pksebben 4y ago
      because they're all people who signed up for okcupid, who were actively using okcupid to date at the time. the amount of pressure this puts on the sampling is hard to understate. not only are you looking at a highly truncated set of interpersonal dynamics (what you can tell about someone based on a dating profile is far less than what you can tell by meeting real people in meat space), you're specifically selecting for people who have been as of yet unsuccessful IRL. you're also selecting for people who wish to take a fairly serious shortcut around personal interaction. given these factors, it would be both crazy and stupid to believe you can generalize about human nature anything you get from a dating app. as for "what you see in real life", might I suggest that you, yourself, are also constrained to a perspective that doesn't necessarily match other people's perspectives, and that maybe, just maybe, you are also seeing a biased sample of the world which is both the result and cause of difficulties with interpersonal interactions?