April 2024 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
- July 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- September 2014
- May 2014
- September 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- December 2012
- January 2012
- November 2011
- May 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- September 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- April 2009
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- August 2006
- July 2006
- September 2005
Categories
- A2K3
- anaphylaxis
- Berkman
- Berkman Lunch Series
- Book Reviews
- Conferences
- Developing world
- Diary
- Economics
- Fascinating People
- Film
- health
- Human Rights
- Intellectual Property
- Internet and Democracy
- Law
- Law
- Machine Learning
- Media
- Middle East
- Open Data
- Open Science
- OSTP
- Peer Review
- personal
- Reproducible Research
- Scientific Method
- shameless self-promotion
- Software
- Startups
- Statistics
- Talks
- Technology
- Uncategorized
- Women's rights
Category Archives: Statistics
Paul Meier: Still Saving Millions of Lives
You may never have heard of Paul Meier, but perhaps I can convince you he is one of the 2oth century’s greatest heroes. As I write from my “shelter in place” from the violent COVID-19 pandemic, I’m seeing news stories … Continue reading
The nature of science in 2051
Right now scientific questions are chosen for study in a largely autocratic way. Typically grants for research on particular questions come from federal funding agencies, and scientists competitively apply with the money going to the chosen researcher via a peer … Continue reading
Posted in Open Science, Reproducible Research, Statistics
1 Comment
Generalize clinicaltrials.gov and register research hypotheses before analysis
Stanley Young is Director of Bioinformatics at the National Institute for Statistical Sciences, and gave a talk in 2009 on problems in modern scientific research. For example: 1 in 20 NIH-funded studies actually replicates; closed data and opacity; model selection … Continue reading
My Symposium at the AAAS Annual Meeting: The Digitization of Science
Yesterday I held a symposium at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington DC, called “The Digitization of Science: Reproducibility and Interdisciplinary Knowledge Transfer,” that was intended to bring attention to how massive computation is changing the practice of science, particularly … Continue reading
Startups Awash in Data: Quantitative Thinkers Needed
We know unix logs everything, which makes web-based data collection easy, in fact almost difficult not to do. As a result internet startups often find themselves gathering enormous amounts of data, for example site use patterns, click-streams, user demographics and … Continue reading
Posted in Software, Startups, Statistics, Technology
3 Comments
Open Data Dead on Arrival
In 1984 Karl Popper wrote a private letter to an inquirer he didn’t know, responding to enclosed interview questions. The response was subsequently published and in it he wrote, among other things, that: “Every intellectual has a very special responsibility. … Continue reading
Ars technica article on reproducibility in science
John Timmer wrote an excellent article called “Keeping computers from ending science’s reproducibility.” I’m quoted in it. Here’s an excellent follow up blog post by Grant Jacobs, “Reproducible Research and computational biology.”
My answer to the Edge Annual Question 2010: How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?
At the end of every year editors at my favorite website The Edge ask intellectuals to answer a thought-provoking question. This year it was “How is the internet changing the way you think?†My answer is posted here: http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_15.html#stodden
Post 2: The OSTP’s call for comments regarding Public Access Policies for Science and Technology Funding Agencies Across the Federal Government
The following comments were posted in response to the second wave of the OSTP’s call as posted here: http://www.ostp.gov/galleries/default-file/RFI%20Final%20for%20FR.pdf. The first wave, comments posted here and on the OSTP site here (scroll to the second last comment), asked for feedback … Continue reading
The Climate Modeling Leak: Code and Data Generating Published Results Must be Open and Facilitate Reproducibility
On November 20 documents including email and code spanning more than a decade were leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University in the UK. The Leak Reveals a Failure of Reproducibility of Computational Results It appears … Continue reading
My Interview with ITConversations on Reproducible Research
On September 30, I was interviewed by Jon Udell from ITConversations.org in his Interviews with Innovators series, on Reproducibility of Computational Science. Here’s the blurb: “If you’re a writer, a musician, or an artist, you can use Creative Commons licenses … Continue reading
Optimal Information Disclosure Levels: Data.gov and "Taleb's Criticism"
I was listening to the audio recording of last Friday’s :Scientific Data for Evidence Based Policy and Decision Making symposium at the National Academies, and was struck by the earnest effort on the part of members of the Whitehouse to … Continue reading
What's New at Science Foo Camp 2009
SciFoo is a wonderful annual gathering of thinkers about science. It’s an unconference and people who choose to speak do so. Here’s my reaction to a couple of these talks. In Pete Worden’s discussion of modeling future climate change, I … Continue reading
Bill Gates to Development Researchers: Create and Share Statistics
I was recently in Doha, Qatar, presenting my research on global communication technology use and democratic tendency at ICTD09. I spoke right before the keynote, Bill Gates, whose main point was that when you engage in a goal-oriented activity, such … Continue reading
Wolfram|Alpha Demoed at Harvard: Limits on Human Understanding?
Yesterday Stephen Wolfram gave the first demo of Wolfram|Alpha, coming in May, what he modestly describes as a system to make our stock of human knowledge computable. It includes not just facts, but also our algorithmic knowledge. He says, “Given … Continue reading
Posted in Open Science, Reproducible Research, Statistics, Talks, Technology
2 Comments
Sunstein speaks on extremism
Cass Sunstein, Professor at Harvard Law School, is speaking today on Extremism: Politics and Law. Related to this topic, he is the author of Nudge, Republic.com 2.0, and Infotopia. He discussed Republic 2.0 with Henry Farrell on this bloggingheads.tv diavlog, … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Law, Media, Statistics, Technology
Leave a comment
Legal Barriers to Open Science: my SciFoo talk
I had an amazing time participating at Science Foo Camp this year. This is a unique conference: there are 200 invitees comprising some of the most innovative thinkers about science today. Most are scientists but not all – there are … Continue reading
A2K3 Kaltura Award
I am honored and humbled to win the A2K3 Kaltura prize for best paper. Peter Suber posts about it here and gives the abstract. His post also includes a link to a draft of the paper, which can also be … Continue reading
Internet and Cell Phone Use in the Middle East
When people talk about the Internet and Democracy, especially in the context of the Middle East, I wonder just how pervasive the Internet really is in these countries. I made a quick plot of data for Middle Eastern countries from … Continue reading
Posted in Middle East, Statistics, Technology
1 Comment
John Kelly: Parsing the Political Blogosphere
John Kelly is a doctoral student a Columbia’s School of Communications, a startup founder (Morningside Analytics), as well as doing collaborative work with Berkman. He’s speaking Berkman’s Media Re:public Forum. Kelly says he takes an ecosystem approach to studying the … Continue reading
Posted in Berkman, Conferences, Internet and Democracy, Media, Statistics, Talks
1 Comment
Book Review: "Development as Freedom" by Amartya Sen
What is a developed country? According to Sen, development should be measured by how much freedom a country has since without freedom people cannot make the choices that allow them to help themselves and others. He defines freedom as an … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Developing world, Economics, Human Rights, Statistics
Leave a comment
Patrick Ball in NYT Magazine
Recently the Berkman Internet and Democracy group hosted a conference on Digital Activism in Istanbul. One of the attendees was Patrick Ball, Chief Scientist and Director of the Human Rights program at Benetech. His work was the focus of a … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, Statistics
Leave a comment