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I agree this is tone deaf, mostly. And certainly journalists have room for improvement in understanding data. However, I certainly agree with this statement: >
by mikepilla 13y ago
I agree this is tone deaf, mostly. And certainly journalists have room for improvement in understanding data. However, I certainly agree with this statement:
>Neutrality is an evasion of responsibility, unless everything is like sports.
More data can also mean more noise. More data can also mean implying more causation where none exists. And the world isn't a giant game with sterile constraints and static rules.
- cruise02 13y ago"It's just my opinion" strikes me as the larger evasion of responsibility here. There's nothing irresponsible about reporting the facts of a story so that people can make informed decisions. > More data can also mean more noise. Nate Silver wrote a book titled "The Signal and the Noise." I'm sure he's aware of the danger. Data Analysis (Data Science, whatever you want to call it) is all about turning data into information. Reducing noise.
- mikepilla 13y agoForget about Silver for a moment. What’s more dangerous, the bias in an opinion page or bias in a feature article masquerading as neutral fact? More data, more samples, can produce more spurious relationships, whatever statistical massaging is applied. Given more Noise, there’s more opportunity to inject bias in finding your Signal. Journalists shouldn’t pretend their data doesn’t stink because they just figured out how to get Excel to crap out regression results.
- cruise02 13y agoWho is suggesting they should?