In an analysis that controlled for 83 variables to isolate the effect of race on discipline, the study found African American students had a 31 percent higher likelihood of being disciplined for a discretionary offense, compared with identical whites and Hispanics.
More here (WPost via Boston Globe). I don’t believe the result for other reasons, but pretending like you can isolate the effect of race by adjusting for 83 variables signals to me that something is really not right here.
I may have posted about the original study before. Basically some researchers at BU looked at some centenarians and thought they found a common gene that made them live longer. Now the Globe reports the study is being retracted, apparently due to some faulty equipment prone to false positives–the description of the reason for retracting isn’t that great. This bit got me thinking:
In its statement yesterday, Science said that of about 800 articles published each year, about three to five are retracted.
So maybe journals and the press who report on them should include a disclaimer to that effect. Indeed knowing that retractions are so rare (< 1% of the time) might make findings more credible.
A provocative new book argues there is a correlation between mental illness and successful leadership.
Psychiatrist Nassir Ghaemi sums up his thesis like this: “Mental illness enhances leadership in crisis situations.”
From here. Not sure where to start here.
Indeed, this Boston Globe article on the Christakis-Fowler kerfuffle is probably more interesting as a cultural artifact than it is in terms of telling us something about the influence of social networks. Also interesting is how the writer seems to conflate two possible criticisms, namely bias (the homophily story) and variance (“precision” is mentioned a few times).
In the past decade there has been a flurry of research into the effects of antidepressants on pregnancy – in particular, on selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which include Prozac and are the most commonly prescribed such drugs. So far, findings published on their possible effects have been all over the map – from increased likelihood of pre-term delivery to poor adaptation by newborns because of withdrawal symptoms from the drugs.
From an article in the July 25th Boston Globe. The gist: basically no evidence, just hype and lawyers trying to profit off if the hype. One thing left unclear for me is why anyone bothered
to look at this question in the first place. Theory?
Yes, says this piece in the Fashion Section of the July 17 New York Times.
At least according to a recent study by Diane Kholos Wysocki, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and Cheryl D. Childers, a professor of sociology at Washburn University, women are more likely to send nude photographs or sexually explicit text messages than men. About two-thirds of women surveyed sent such missives compared with roughly half the men (although for reasons to be explained later, these results are not the most scientific).
Why aren’t these results “the most scientific?”
But there are major caveats to the study: Surveying users of a Web site for swingers does not compare to taking a nationally representative poll or conducting a community study. The people who responded to the survey differ from the general population in many respects; most significantly, they are actual or would-be cheaters. They are also people who visit a particular cheating Web site, which may differ in clientele from other cheating sites.
Finally, the respondents were people who elected to respond to a voluntary survey and therefore differ from those people who visit that Web site but do not have the time or the inclination to fill out a survey. This is called self-selection and makes generalizing about the entire population unreliable. In the end, the group skewed more educated, more affluent and older than the general population.
Still, the study does offer insight into the world of online infidelity.
I know the New York Times can never print an article that doesn’t include a paragraph starting with “Still,” but come on. What insight do we get into anything, with all these caveats?
I also like the bold heading at the top of the page: “THE GIST Women are more likely to “sext” than men.”
Politicians, of all people, should be hyper-sensitive about any appearance of racism. And maybe they are, but not enough that clever political scientists can’t catch them by using a fake-constituent e-mail experiment. In a recently published study, an e-mail inquiring about registering to vote was sent to several thousand state legislators before the 2008 general election. Some legislators received the e-mail from “Jake Mueller,” while others received the e-mail from “DeShawn Jackson.” In general, Jake got a somewhat higher response rate than DeShawn, and, on the surface, it seemed that Democrats were less discriminatory than Republicans. However, upon further analysis, the data revealed that white Democrats discriminated just as much as Republicans (most of whom were white), but they were balanced out by minority Democrats discriminating in favor of DeShawn, making it looking like Democrats as a whole didn’t discriminate. The authors conclude that these “results provide direct support for the broader argument that how effectively minorities are represented does depend on the race of their representatives, regardless of their party.”
This is the Boston Globe’s Kevin Lewis on a forthcoming paper in the American Journal of Political Science by D. Butler and D. Broockman. I heard about this research before and am excited it’s being published. I’ll read it when it shows up in my inbox.
This is a field experiment so threats to internal validity are minimized. We could wonder about external validity–perhaps US state legislators are somehow different than other lawmakers, either in the federal level or (more likely) in other countries. But I think if we want to learn something about racial bias in policy in the US states, this is a great example of how to do it.
(With apologies to the Monkey Cage.)
])Peter Kramer’s opinion piece in the July 9 New York Times is both a critique of studies purporting to show that anti-depressants “don’t work” and a critique of the media’s fascination with “debunking studies,” studies that contradict established views.
As for the news media’s uncritical embrace of debunking studies, my guess, based on regular contact with reporters, is that a number of forces are at work. Misdeeds — from hiding study results to paying off doctors — have made Big Pharma an inviting and, frankly, an appropriate target. (It’s a favorite of Dr. Angell’s.) Antidepressants have something like celebrity status; exposing them makes headlines.
Oh, and he also has a nice discussion of the conflicting research on the efficacy of anti-depressants.
On a related note, I just came across a blog called “Retraction Watch.” Apparently they’ve gotten some media attention.
City officials acknowledged yesterday that their assertion is based on anecdotal evidence, mainly citizen complaints, because they do not keep statistics that indicate the bikes are used to commit crimes. And now, some community members, and at least one city councilor, say the crackdown, dubbed Operation Kick Stand, is a knee-jerk reaction that distracts from the underlying issues that lead to street violence.
From the bottom of my inbox, a June 30 article in the Boston Globe. I guess the BPD have taken Alex Beam’s advice and are shunning the “evidence-based” fad.