5 ms·

I read the article. I wouldn't call one anecdote data, though it's about 1/10,000 of a good start.

• albertni 18y ago
  That's a little harsh. It was a pretty significant anecdote - a 6.5x decrease with the only clear change being Pallotta's company-charity being forcibly stopped from continued involvement. Is there room for other plausible reasons to have caused the drop? Definitely. And of course if, hypothetically, Pallotta's company-charity was involved with sufficiently many causes, you would even expect there to be at least one anecdote with such a substantial drop. But to call it "1/10,000 of a good start" is much more unreasonable and illogical than thinking the anecdote might be of worth.
  • DabAsteroid 18y ago
    a 6.5x decrease That would be negative 5.5 times, or 5.5 times below zero.
• trominos 18y ago
  You might not call it that, but one anecdote is indeed data. A very small amount, to be sure -- but it's all we've got. Tiny amounts of data can almost never prove a particular theory correct (in sociology, at least), but you're quite simply wrong if you think we can't get anything out of them. This particular data -- datum, I guess -- certainly can't show that charity CEOs in general earn their keep, but it so blatantly contradicts your theory that I think it's safe for us to assume that you're incorrect. Is it possible that "there are many qualified people in charity work who make barely-subsistence wages who would likely do an as-good or better job with far less pay" and that the story's CEO's departure caused an 85% loss in the charity's income? Yes, of course. But it's unlikely. At the very least it seems like there needs to be some kind of barrier to hiring those people -- maybe it's impossible to determine which of these minimum-wage earners is actually a highly competent manager.