
R in Ecology - gk1
https://blog.dominodatalab.com/r-in-ecology/
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tstactplsignore
A lot of statistical analysis and R packages were pioneered for/by ecologists.
In ecology we get some of the more complex and interesting data, and questions
to be asked of that data. For example, the popular R package vegan was made
for ecological analysis.

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closed
My sense is that ecology tends to have more on spatial covariance (along with
epidemiology), psychology on building scales out of latent factor models, and
economics on temporal covariance.

(although there is substantial overlap between the three)

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baldfat
> I’m a bit of an R nerd. Ok, that’s a lie; I’m a major R nerd. But for good
> reason, because R is incredibly useful in streamlining the scientific
> process, and increasing the ability to replicate findings with less human
> error.

If only we could make the spreadsheet not get used by most scientist it would
be a better place.

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hardboiled
Agreed. The `raw` data collection should be transparent and in a format that
is not locked into Excel spreadsheets.

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auxym
I'm no big fan of excel, but the modern xlsx format is "open", in that it's
documented (though maybe not perfectly). It certainly is possible to read data
from it using a variety of open source packages, from LO Calc to libraries
like pyxl.

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baldfat
It's not that it's open it is that all the steps are seen and can be repeated.
Excel is just manual labor without seeing how the person took the raw data and
got to their conclusion.

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aaachilless
I don't find the title misleading, but I think it's worth noting that the
message isn't very R- or ecology-specific. The message is something like "if
you do science, you should use scriptable data processing tools."

edit: I guess the message I described is on top of the more specific message
that R, specifically, works well for ecology, specifically.

