Some day you will be loved — Death Cab for Cutie Here is a paper that I just read that I really liked: Karl Rohe and Muzhe Zeng’s Vintage Factor Analysis with Varimax Performs Statistical Inference. (Does anyone else get a Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear vibe off that title? No? Just me? […]
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Male bisexuality gets Big PNAS Energy
Do flowers exist at night?—John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch I have very little to say here, except to let you all know that the venerable PNAS has today published a paper (edited by Steven Pinker) letting use know that male bisexuality exists. Here it is: Robust evidence for bisexual orientation among men (The paper […]
The seventy two percent solution (to police violence)
And now it is your turn, We are tired of praying, and marching, and thinking, and learning — Gil Scott-Heron So. It turns out that Gil Scott-Heron was right and he was wrong. We once again, during a time of serious social inequality and political upheaval, sent whiteys to the moon (ish). On the other hand, the […]
Fugitive and cloistered virtues
There’s a new revolution, a loud evolution that I saw. Born of confusion and quiet collusion of which mostly I’ve known. — Lana Del Ray While an unexamined life seems like an excellent idea, an unexamined prior distribution probably isn’t. And, I mean, I write and talk and think and talk and write and talk and talk and […]
Unquestionable Research Practices
Hi! (This is Dan.) The glorious Josh Loftus from NYU just asked the following question. Obviously he’s not heard of preregistration. Seriously though, it’s always good to remember that a lot of ink being spilled over hypothesis testing and it’s statistical brethren doesn’t mean that if we fix that we’ll fix anything. It all comes to […]
What if it’s never decorative gourd season?
If it rains, now we’ll change We’ll hold and save all of what came We won’t let it run away If it rains — Robert Forster I’ve been working recently as part of a team of statisticians based in Toronto on a big, complicated applied problem. One of the things about working on this project […]
A heart full of hatred: 8 schools edition
No; I was all horns and thorns Sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright — Joanna Newsom Far be it for me to be accused of liking things. Let me, instead, present a corner of my hateful heart. (That is to say that I’m supposed to be doing a really complicated thing right now and […]
Dan’s Paper Corner: Yes! It does work!
Only share my research With sick lab rats like me Trapped behind the beakers And the Erlenmeyer flasks Cut off from the world, I may not ever get free But I may One day Trying to find An antidote for strychnine — The Mountain Goats Hi everyone! Hope you’re enjoying Peak Libra Season! I’m bringing […]
Dan’s Paper Corner: Can we model scientific discovery and what can we learn from the process?
Jesus taken serious by the many Jesus taken joyous by a few Jazz police are paid by J. Paul Getty Jazzers paid by J. Paul Getty II Leonard Cohen So I’m trying a new thing because like no one is really desperate for another five thousand word essay about whatever happens to be on my […]
Multilevel structured (regression) and post-stratification
My enemies are all too familiar. They’re the ones who used to call me friend – Jawbreaker Well I am back from Australia where I gave a whole pile of talks and drank more coffee than is probably a good idea. So I’m pretty jetlagged and I’m supposed to be writing my tenure packet, so […]
I don’t have a clever title but this is an interesting paper
Why do we, as a discipline, have so little understanding of the methods we have created and promote? Our primary tool for gaining understanding is mathematics, which has obvious appeal: most of us trained in math and there is no better form of information than a theorem that establishes a useful fact about a method. […]
All I need is time, a moment that is mine, while I’m in between
You’re an ordinary boy and that’s the way I like it – Magic Dirt Look. I’ll say something now, so it’s off my chest. I hate order statisics. I loathe them. I detest them. I wish them nothing but ill and strife. They are just awful. And I’ve spent the last god only knows how long […]
Against Arianism 3: Consider the cognitive models of the field
“You took my sadness out of context at the Mariners Apartment Complex” – Lana Del Rey It’s sunny, I’m in England, and I’m having a very tasty beer, and Lauren, Andrew, and I just finished a paper called The experiment is just as important as the likelihood in understanding the prior: A cautionary note on robust […]
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die; or We broke R-hat so now we have to fix it.
“Otto eye-balled the diva lying comatose amongst the reeds, and he suddenly felt the fire of inspiration flood his soul. He ran back to his workshop where he futzed and futzed and futzed.” –Bette Midler Andrew was annoyed. Well, annoyed is probably too strong a word. Maybe a better way to start is with The […]
Limitations of “Limitations of Bayesian Leave-One-Out Cross-Validation for Model Selection”
“If you will believe in your heart and confess with your lips, surely you will be saved one day” – The Mountain Goats paraphrasing Romans 10:9 One of the weird things about working with people a lot is that it doesn’t always translate into multiple opportunities to see them talk. I’m pretty sure the only […]
Against Arianism 2: Arianism Grande
“There’s the part you’ve braced yourself against, and then there’s the other part” – The Mountain Goats My favourite genre of movie is Nicole Kidman in a questionable wig. (Part of the sub-genre founded by Sarah Paulson, who is the patron saint of obvious wigs.) And last night I was in the same room* as […]
Against Arianism
“I need some love like I’ve never needed love before” – Geri, Mel C, Mel B, Victoria, Emma (noted Arianists) I spent most of today on a sequence of busses shuttling between cities in Ontario, so I’ve been thinking a lot about fourth century heresies. That’s an obvious lie. But I think we all know […]
Amelia, it was just a false alarm
Nah, jet fuel can’t melt steel beams. I’ve watched enough conspiracy documentaries – Camp Cope Some ideas persist long after the mounting evidence against them becomes overwhelming. Some of these things are kooky but probably harmless (try as I might, I do not care about ESP etc), whereas some are deeply damaging (I’m looking at you “vaccines […]
In my role as professional singer and ham
Pryor unhooks the deer’s skull from the wall above his still-curled-up companion. Examines it. Not a good specimen –the back half of the lower jaw’s missing, a gap that, with the open cranial cavity, makes room enough for Pryor’s head. He puts it on. – Will Eaves, Murmur So as we roll into the last […]
I am the supercargo
In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size replicas of airplanes out of straw and cut new military-style landing strips out of the jungle, hoping to attract more airplanes. – Wikipedia Twenty years ago, Geri Halliwell left the Spice Girls, so I’ve been thinking about Cargo Cults a lot. As an analogy for what […]