Category Archives: Uncategorized

We cracked open this mammoth tome in March and are now on page 430, having just finished reading David Foster Wallace’s allegory about the allocation of scarce resources, which also happens to be one of the most fundamental questions in a … Continue reading →

Thus far, we have identified several common forms of “data fraud,” including cherry picking, data dredging, and the false cause fallacy. Yet all of these myriad forms of data fraud might be mere symptoms of a larger problem: publication bias. … Continue reading →

Thus far we have seen the related statistical sins of cherry picking and data dredging. Today, let’s talk about the false cause fallacy (or “false causality” for short), which occurs when you observe two events that appear together and then … Continue reading →

Let’s proceed with our parade of fraudulent data practices, shall we? Next up is data dredging (a/k/a “p-hacking”), a more sophisticated (and less transparent) form of cherry picking. In the words of Wikipedia: “The process of data dredging involves automatically … Continue reading →

We presented a collection of fraudulent data practices in our previous post. Now, let’s consider each fraudulent technique in turn, beginning with the “Texas sharpshooter fallacy” or cherry picking: the practice of selecting results that fit your claim and excluding … Continue reading →

That is the title of this well-reasoned essay by Joanna J. Bryson, a computer science professor at the University of Bath. (Also, check out her TEDxCERN Talk below on the question, “Is A.I. changing us?”) Here is an extended excerpt … Continue reading →

Shout out to Armin Chosnama, who introduced us to Tyler Vigen’s wonderful spurious correlations website. Below is just a small subsample of over 30,000 such correlations. File under “bullshit statistics.”

Did you know that landlocked Oklahoma is bordered by six separate States? The hand-painted map of Oklahoma pictured below, which was drawn by artist and fellow polymath Jerry M. Wilson, is the first installment of a series. Check out more … Continue reading →

Inspired by Leonard Bogdonoff‘s project to scrape Instagram to create a universal and searchable database of street art from around the world, we conclude our series on Cuban graffiti artists by including the following non-Instagram compendia of Havana street art: … Continue reading →