3 ms·

There are multiple questions here: What do the transit vs. income graphs for SF look like? How do the SF graphs compare to the NY ones? Is there a clustering

by throwaway1980 13y ago

There are multiple questions here: What do the transit vs. income graphs for SF look like? How do the SF graphs compare to the NY ones? Is there a clustering of rich and poor stops in SF like there is in NY? And then finally, what are the possible explanations? Sure, they didn't answer the last question, and you have to inspect the data to answer the second and third ones, but it's okay to provide data for other people to look at. Surely if the first question was worth answering for NY, it's worth answering for SF. You don't answer questions simply because you expect to find something, you answer them because you're curious. Do you know the story about Richard Feynman and the wobbling plate in the cafeteria? It's another question that "nobody wanted to answer". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x98SEQUo48c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x98SEQUo48c

Dylan16807 13y ago
The wobbling plate is an explanation, not a yes/no answer about correlation. If you can explain something then by definition there is causality in there somewhere. Look, I'm wording myself badly today, let me try again. The question of 'is there a correlation' is worth answering but ONLY because a correlation is plausible. If you are graphing data to apply to a PLAUSIBLE hypothesis, then your work is reasonable. But if you are instead graphing random junk without any reason, you are wasting everyone's time. Data needs to cause some kind of mental connection in the viewer. That is a VERY low bar to meet. This article meets it. But not all theoretical articles do. No conclusion is not necessarily a conclusion. Data doesn't have meaning but showing people data should have meaning.
- throwaway1980 13y ago
  Ok ok, the thing about the wobbling plate is that Feynman says the freedom to investigate a question that was only interesting to him was what led him to get the Nobel prize. Here's an excerpt from his book that's faster to process than the video I linked to: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html But otherwise, I think we basically agree. Mostly I thought you were talking about the SF vs. NY thing and this article, not about inane investigations into arbitrary correlations (e.g., Is there a relationship between the number of steps someone takes per day and the number of spoons in their apartment? - well, actually, there probably is, especially if you start taking away knives and forks too). The most important thing I guess is to have a question that the researcher is interested in answering.

Dylan16807 13y ago

The wobbling plate is an explanation, not a yes/no answer about correlation. If you can explain something then by definition there is causality in there somewhere. Look, I'm wording myself badly today, let me try again. The question of 'is there a correlation' is worth answering but ONLY because a correlation is plausible. If you are graphing data to apply to a PLAUSIBLE hypothesis, then your work is reasonable. But if you are instead graphing random junk without any reason, you are wasting everyone's time. Data needs to cause some kind of mental connection in the viewer. That is a VERY low bar to meet. This article meets it. But not all theoretical articles do. No conclusion is not necessarily a conclusion. Data doesn't have meaning but showing people data should have meaning.

throwaway1980 13y ago
Ok ok, the thing about the wobbling plate is that Feynman says the freedom to investigate a question that was only interesting to him was what led him to get the Nobel prize. Here's an excerpt from his book that's faster to process than the video I linked to: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html But otherwise, I think we basically agree. Mostly I thought you were talking about the SF vs. NY thing and this article, not about inane investigations into arbitrary correlations (e.g., Is there a relationship between the number of steps someone takes per day and the number of spoons in their apartment? - well, actually, there probably is, especially if you start taking away knives and forks too). The most important thing I guess is to have a question that the researcher is interested in answering.