7 ms·
The issue is that there is no actual evidence that the data is being recorded improperly. Anyone can come up with a just so story to describe how the data could
by benchaney 5y ago
The issue is that there is no actual evidence that the data is being recorded improperly. Anyone can come up with a just so story to describe how the data could be corrupted, but writing such a blog post does not in fact put a burden on the people doing actual analysis to refute the claim.
- concinds 5y agoNot how it works. Burdens of proof work in courts of law, but you can't make a statistical analysis without addressing whether the data being used is sound. You'll see a bunch of first-year undergrad papers rely on mediocre data, and then do all sorts of straight-from-textbook statistical analysis of the data, with p-values computed to 5 digits, and then discuss the data's mediocrity in a "Discussion" section. That's a common trope. But if the data is mediocre, you don't have a paper in the first place! Your p-values are junk, so are the abstract and conclusion, and you can't hand-wave it away by bringing up easily-addressed problems with the data in the Discussion section; should have addressed them in the first place. A great physics prof said: "any figure without an uncertainty is meaningless". So is any statistical analysis that doesn't validate the data it relies on. But all that's besides the point, since the article I linked gives good reasons to believe the original government data does display issues in the first place.