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Urban v's the Commentariat

killer b said:
depressingly, the original article is quite thoughtful and thought-provoking.
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Hmm, I'm not so sure. It doesn't really discuss the worthwhile critique of data use (which admittedly some haters of data use may be unaware of). The interesting critique is about how data is used as a trump card in an argument because it is 'objective'. But data is not objective. It seems so, but it isn't. Personal judgements went into what data should be collected, how it would be collected, what data would not be collected. With hard work you can try to deal with some of these problems but you can't get rid of all of them. For instance, you can't know all the data not collected, because there are both known unknowns and unknown unknowns, as Donald would say.

So to give an example of 'correct' data not being objective, here is a piece of data (which I'll invent but we'll pretend I collected for the sake of the argument): In the period 1920 to 1940 there were 1500 violent attacks per year by black men against white men in the southern US. Only 10% of the perpetrators were brought to trial.

I could now write an entire essay on the basis of this data, all the time claiming it to be 'objective'. But it isn't objective, even though the data is technically correct. It's a bit of a crass example I grant you, but almost every use of data can carry similar problems. If we're aware of it that's fine, but then we can no longer use data as quite the trump card we used it as before.

So it's a shame the article doesn't really get into why it is that people got pissed off with data use in the first place. The problem is people using it as 'objective' and attempting to invalidate other arguments (and other methods) through the claim to objective authority.
 
That just underlines the importance behind asking questions about the range of data, the methodology used in collecting it, etc. In other words the correct response to dodgy/cherry-picked data is better data, not to swear it off completely.
 
NoXion said:
That just underlines the importance behind asking questions about the range of data, the methodology used in collecting it, etc. In other words the correct response to dodgy/cherry-picked data is better data, not to swear it off completely.
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Your best will never be 'objective' however, particularly in social problems (as opposed to snooker ball problems) because in social problems the potential amount of data to be collected tends towards the infinite.

The point of this critique isn't to swear off data and never use it, the point is to undermine the authority of it. Because it often pretends to a level of authority that can't really be justified.
 
Brainaddict said:
Your best will never be 'objective' however, particularly in social problems (as opposed to snooker ball problems) because in social problems the potential amount of data to be collected tends towards the infinite.

The point of this critique isn't to swear off data and never use it, the point is to undermine the authority of it. Because it often pretends to a level of authority that can't really be justified.
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Sod "objective", there's no such thing. There is such a thing however as better or more comprehensive data.
 
Brainaddict said:
Hmm, I'm not so sure. It doesn't really discuss the worthwhile critique of data use (which admittedly some haters of data use may be unaware of). The interesting critique is about how data is used as a trump card in an argument because it is 'objective'. But data is not objective. It seems so, but it isn't. Personal judgements went into what data should be collected, how it would be collected, what data would not be collected. With hard work you can try to deal with some of these problems but you can't get rid of all of them. For instance, you can't know all the data not collected, because there are both known unknowns and unknown unknowns, as Donald would say.

So to give an example of 'correct' data not being objective, here is a piece of data (which I'll invent but we'll pretend I collected for the sake of the argument): In the period 1920 to 1940 there were 1500 violent attacks per year by black men against white men in the southern US. Only 10% of the perpetrators were brought to trial.

I could now write an entire essay on the basis of this data, all the time claiming it to be 'objective'. But it isn't objective, even though the data is technically correct. It's a bit of a crass example I grant you, but almost every use of data can carry similar problems. If we're aware of it that's fine, but then we can no longer use data as quite the trump card we used it as before.

So it's a shame the article doesn't really get into why it is that people got pissed off with data use in the first place. The problem is people using it as 'objective' and attempting to invalidate other arguments (and other methods) through the claim to objective authority.
Click to expand...

I think that's a slightly odd criticism of the article tbh. It's talking about things being portrayed as macho and therefore bad, of which big data use is an example but other male dominated fields are touched on. What may be a better criticism of how data is used isn't the point.
 
Monkeygrinder's Organ said:
I think that's a slightly odd criticism of the article tbh. It's talking about things being portrayed as macho and therefore bad, of which big data use is an example but other male dominated fields are touched on. What may be a better criticism of how data is used isn't the point.
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But the article fails to understand why there is a feminist/post-structuralist critique of data use, and why it might be described as 'macho'. The article thinks it is just about data coming from sciency male-dominated fields but I think that misunderstands why some people are suspicious of data or describe it as macho. There is a whole discourse behind this about the assumed authority of science (or data), and the role of data in systems of (patriarchal, capitalist etc) domination, and the way people use assumed authority to silence opposing points of view.

So the article doesn't entirely understand critiques of data use (perhaps just got noddy versions off twitter, where people summarise the criticism with the word 'macho', or are even using discourse they only half understand). My criticism of the article is that it doesn't understand or recognise the debate it has wandered into. Which is why I may be appearing to talk past the article.
 
Brainaddict said:
But the article fails to understand why there is a feminist/post-structuralist critique of data use, and why it might be described as 'macho'. The article thinks it is just about data coming from sciency male-dominated fields but I think that misunderstands why some people are suspicious of data or describe it as macho. There is a whole discourse behind this about the assumed authority of science (or data), and the role of data in systems of (patriarchal, capitalist etc) domination, and the way people use assumed authority to silence opposing points of view.

So the article doesn't entirely understand critiques of data use (perhaps just got noddy versions off twitter, where people summarise the criticism with the word 'macho', or are even using discourse they only half understand). My criticism of the article is that it doesn't understand or recognise the debate it has wandered into. Which is why I may be appearing to talk past the article.
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From what I can tell it understands the critiques of data use that form the focus of the article very well - I've encountered these kinds of people in real life and they really do think that purely emotional arguments based only on subjective experience (as opposed to arguments that are sensitive to, but not purely based on, said experience) should trump reasoned evidence based discussion every time.

Isn't your response along the same likes as someone attacking an article that takes on creationist critiques of Darwinism on the basis that it doesn't mention Stephen Jay Gould and punctuated equilibrium?
 
It's an utter irrelevance as regards the next election - that sort of stuff could only come from within a bubble of right-on types. What's more revealing is that she's still team-labour, that's who her our is. But of course, this can't be openly declared can it?
 
Just noticed this dizzgusting attempt at #silencing.

Hungary eurovision guy said:
"I wrote this song about a childhood friend of mine, and people I have met with similar stories throughout my life. Unfortunately my friend was victim to child abuse, domestic violence. I wrote this song about their experiences and everything that they went though. I would like to raise awareness to this topic."
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He's a POC, which makes it a little bit racism as well.

 
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Thought this might go here..

http://gawker.com/lefty-writer-chri..._source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Last week, the New Republic accused Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer-winning ex-New York Times reporter and antiwar essayist, of plagiarism. A further investigation by Gawker has found that Hedges has published writing suspiciously similar to that of left-wing hero Amy Goodman, and that he has been recycling and reselling his own old work as original writing to multiple outlets for at least a decade.

The preponderance of the evidence suggests that in addition to borrowing liberally from sources as diverse as Hemingway and fellow Harper's contributors, Hedges—an antiwar icon who has published widely and prolifically since leaving the Times more than a decade ago—is also a serial self-plagiarist, on the order of the disgraced New Yorker writer Jonah Lehrer.

Gawker examined a variety of Hedges' online writings for similarities to other works. The investigation, which focused especially on the writer's earliest columns for the liberal site Truthdig beginning in 2006, was neither systematic nor scientific. But of approximately 20 pieces examined, at least half exhibited verbatim similarities to older work, either Hedges' or someone else's. The similarities ran from a few lines to several thousand words.
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You would think that it would be some time for some self-evaluation upon discovering that your positions/the positions of people you use as contacts and support are indistinguishable from misogynist parody... but no.
 
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