

Skepticism about beautiful people having more daughters. - lliiffee
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2007/07/how_should_unpr.html

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philwelch
It's great to have what effectively amounts to a rebuttal on the front page at
the same time as the article it disputes.

~~~
jimmybot
I find it great that on HN, new links are often relevant to recently,
previously discussed links. You can almost see the collective mind digesting
new information and putting out new conjectures.

Still, I wonder if there would be a good system for showing two stories are
related, because although I frequently check HN, I don't always keep up and
some stories really need the context of the previous story.

~~~
tokenadult
_I wonder if there would be a good system for showing two stories are related_

I believe that is called a hyperlink, as here.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=726421>

Hyperlinks generalize to showing that three or more stories are related, and
allow annotations (by accompanying text) to show the nature of the
relationship. Here, I can make clear that the thread to which I post this
reply links out to an article that refutes the article linked out to in the
link

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=726421>

I have just provided to another HN discussion thread.

Hypertext is wonderful.

~~~
tokenadult
All right, I see the downvotes, so let me ask a question: what other technical
means do people have in mind? Today's existing technology allows any of us to
show relatedness of any URL to any other URL by posting the link and
accompanying that link with explanatory text. What other technology would
require less human thought about how to show that two (or more) recent threads
here on HN are related?

As an example, could I ask for a demonstration of relatedness between my post
above and any part of the HN guidelines?

~~~
philwelch
You were a bit sarcastic and cheeky, which doesn't play well, but your point
is well taken so I have upvoted you a bit.

Perhaps the submission form could use a "related stories" field if you're
submitting a response to a previous story or something?

~~~
tokenadult
_Perhaps the submission form could use a "related stories" field if you're
submitting a response to a previous story or something?_

Thanks for the specific suggestion. Along those lines, on this and other
forums I've often wondered how technically feasible it is to mine the database
as a submission is received, so that the user submitting a new article obtains
a notification like "This submission looks very much like . . . " showing
links to previously submitted articles that by titles (or keywords in full
text) seem to be about the same subject. That would allow the user to

a) decline to submit the new link altogether,

b) indicate which previous links are related (as you suggest)

c) merge into one or another existing thread,

or

d) perhaps some other action that doesn't immediately come to mind.

But that still requires human thought by the programmer of the forum, at
least, and most likely by the submitter as well. Sorry about the snarkiness
above, but that's where the snarkiness came from--technical solutions fail if
users don't have the commitment to make use of them.

------
snewe
This letter:

[http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/kana...](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/kanazawa.pdf)

effectively shows that the original paper ignored endogeneity, mis-interpreted
coefficient estimates and data-mined.

------
Tichy
I think most people try a variety of things in their life, eventually hit on
something that yields good returns, and then milk it for all it's worth. So
that "beautiful daughters" guy has found a gold mine. Who cares about science
- tell people what they want to hear, and what they can use to chat on
parties, and you can make lots of money. (Not only selling books, but also
getting grants and invitations to universities, no doubt).

With that thesis the author can get famous, where is his incentive to be
honest about it?

I am waiting for the corresponding articles to appear in all major magazines
in my country (presented as established fact, of course). It just makes for
too good a story to pass on it.

~~~
Ardit20
_With that thesis the author can get famous, where is his incentive to be
honest about it?_

Well, this article is about a scientist, or statistician, alleging that the
results are "speculation". She is being polite of course and in the scientific
lingo she is probably saying that he is a fraud. So that is his incentive, he
can be honest and find a "true" goldmine, or gamble and either go to the top
or sink to the bottom.

