The Texas-sharpshooter fallacy is the name epidemiologists give to the clustering illusion. Politicians, lawyers and some scientists tend to isolate clusters of diseases from their context, thereby giving the illusion of a causal connection between some environmental factor and the disease. What appears to be statistically significant (i.e., not due to chance) is actually expected by the laws of chance.
Of the thousands of studies of cancer-clusters investigated by scientists in the United States, "not one has convincingly identified an underlying environmental cause" (Gawande).
The term refers to the story of the Texas sharpshooter who shoots holes in the side of a barn and then draws a bull's-eye around the bullet holes. Individual cases of disease are noted and then the boundaries are drawn (Gawande).
Courtesy of Dan Selaru aka Romania de ieri.
Bolojan, Radu Eremia și austeritatea
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5 comentarii:
Au rezolvat-o cu Dow Jones. Si am scris-o pe aia cu statistica de nervi, ca apar tot felul de cetateni care leaga orice de orice.
Manca'o'ar mama de teoria conspiratziei, ca e buna la toate. Instrument universal de prosteala si de rautate otravita.
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Joerg Haider a murit omorat de KGB sau Mossad nu de bou ca a mers cu 170. De la comentariile de pe Hotnews.
legat de o alta teorie a conspiratiei Can`t take my eyes off of you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbIsSzhmL9c
Yup. Era inevitabil sa vina oamenii sa dea cu teoria conspiratziei in moartea lui Haider. Stai sa vezi cand oameni cu fonctzii si responsabilitatzi gandesc la fel. Chiar az' noapte am fost martor la o asemenea discutie.
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