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Mistakes
Scott Alexander maintains a list of significant mistakes in his blog posts, providing corrections and updates in reverse chronological order.
42 min read 6,476 words
A thread through the archive
statistics
Essays tagged “statistics”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Essays on statistics
55 essaysSSC
Coronalinks 4/10: Second Derivative
Scott Alexander provides updates on coronavirus trends, discusses various pandemic-related topics, and analyzes different countries' responses and policy proposals.
25 min read 3,781 words
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Never Tell Me The Odds (Ratio)
Scott Alexander warns about the potential misinterpretation of odds ratios in studies, explaining how to convert them to effect sizes for more accurate understanding.
3 min read 365 words
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Coronalinks 3/19/20
Scott Alexander provides updates and speculations on various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including case estimates, strategies, medical issues, and societal responses.
24 min read 3,668 words
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Links 10/19
A diverse collection of links on topics ranging from gerrymandering and health insurance to tech bubbles and extinction risk estimates, presented with minimal commentary.
20 min read 2,960 words
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Kernel Of Doubt: Testing Math Preference Vs. Corn-Eating Style
Scott Alexander tests the claim that mathematicians' preference for algebra or analysis predicts their corn-eating style, finding no significant correlation in a survey of over 2,600 respondents.
8 min read 1,212 words
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Against Overgendering Harassment
The post criticizes the gendered framing of sexual harassment, presenting statistics on male victims and female perpetrators, and argues for a more balanced approach to the issue.
15 min read 2,309 words
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The Pyramid And The Garden
Scott Alexander examines a pseudoscientific claim about the Great Pyramid of Giza to illustrate how coincidences can appear more significant than they are, relating this to challenges in evaluating scientific studies.
16 min read 2,444 words
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I Wrote A Blog Post, But Did Not Adjust For The Fact That The Title Would Be Too L
Scott Alexander critiques a study on fathers' influence on sons' obesity, highlighting statistical flaws and misleading publicity, while exploring the broader challenge of identifying genuine parental effects.
11 min read 1,569 words
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Links 5/16: Linko de Mayo
A collection of interesting links and studies on various topics, from bad statistics and media coverage to technological progress and scientific discoveries, with commentary from Scott Alexander.
28 min read 4,206 words
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Beware Regional Scatterplots
Scott Alexander cautions against drawing strong conclusions from regional scatterplots, demonstrating how apparent correlations can be artifacts of regional clustering rather than true relationships.
8 min read 1,168 words
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Reverse Voxsplaining: Prison and Mental Illness
Scott Alexander criticizes the idea that prisons have replaced mental hospitals, arguing for better community and forensic mental health care instead of long-term institutionalization.
19 min read 2,847 words
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Lies, Damned Lies, And The Media (Part 6 of ∞)
Scott Alexander dissects and criticizes Breitbart's misleading use of statistics about illegal immigrant crime, emphasizing the need for better understanding and interpretation of data in political debates.
16 min read 2,391 words
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How Bad Are Things?
Scott Alexander explores the hidden prevalence of misery in society, using his psychiatric experience and statistical analysis to argue that suffering is more widespread than commonly perceived.
15 min read 2,279 words
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Hardball Questions For The Next Debate
Scott Alexander presents satirical, absurdist 'hardball' questions for presidential candidates, blending their backgrounds with outlandish scenarios and philosophical puzzles.
20 min read 2,992 words
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A Whiter Shade of Candidate
Scott Alexander debunks the idea that Trump's supporters are disproportionately white, revealing that Bernie Sanders actually has much whiter support, and uses this to challenge common narratives about race and politics.
14 min read 2,079 words
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Cardiologists and Chinese Robbers
The post uses a fabricated narrative about cardiologists to illustrate the Chinese Robber Fallacy and its role in media bias, emphasizing the importance of context in interpreting negative stories about any group.
14 min read 2,078 words
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Links 8/15: Linkering Doubts
A collection of interesting links covering science, economics, and culture, with key stories about psychology study replication failures and various scientific findings.
17 min read 2,574 words
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Stalin and Summary Statistics
Scott Alexander examines how different statistical presentations of the same data in social science studies can lead to vastly different interpretations, potentially misleading readers.
18 min read 2,663 words
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Beware Summary Statistics
Scott Alexander explores how summary statistics can be misleading when describing relationships between variables, using examples of IQ's correlation with crime and income.
5 min read 661 words
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Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
Scott Alexander explores the concept of 'isolated demands for rigor' across philosophy, politics, and science, criticizing the selective application of rigorous standards.
18 min read 2,716 words
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Getting Eulered
Scott Alexander explores the concept of 'Eulering' and strategies for dealing with complex mathematical arguments in non-mathematical debates.
19 min read 2,821 words
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Links for June 2014
A links roundup post from June 2014 covering various topics from e-cigarettes and gender studies to technology and healthcare, with critical analysis of recent research and developments.
16 min read 2,369 words
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Lies, Damned Lies, And Social Media (Part 5 of ∞)
Scott debunks viral misinformation about false rape accusation rates and provides more accurate estimates, while criticizing the spread of such inaccuracies in feminist circles.
27 min read 4,033 words
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Two Dark Side Statistics Papers
Scott Alexander reviews two papers exposing statistical manipulation techniques in psychology research and addiction treatment program evaluations.
14 min read 2,049 words