hrefna , to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Part of my gripe with Nate Silver, beyond all of my other gripes with Nate Silver, is how he helped further acculturate this idea out that:

Smart Guy™ + Numbers™ + Math™ = Reliable Result™

Like this has always been a problem and wasn't new when he started modeling politics, but he pushed it quite a bit further.

No qualifications, no background, no nothing required. Just Smart Guy™ + Numbers™ + Math™ is all you need.

hrefna OP ,
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

This is the problem with the (malpractice) report with flawed methodology.

It was just "we took some numbers and had our data person opaquely added some math to it! All good now!"

"Wait, why is it a problem that our model shows Alaska and Arkansas above Colorado? That's just what the data says!"

But that isn't what the data says, that's maybe what can be derived if you know nothing about the data, but part of the job of a data professional is to look past the superficial.

hrefna , to random
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

There's a chart going around either from or citing #SafeHomeDotOrg that "ranks" LGBTQ "safety grades" by state.

It's an object lesson in why the assumptions behind your data matter significantly and in how not to communicate data.

First red flag: there are no dates anywhere on it.

Second red flag: A large chunk of its data comes from hate crime reporting rates.

What is a hate crime and how often do things get filed as such matters significantly for these things.

This misleads.

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