[HN Gopher] Statistical Imaginaries: An ode to responsible data ...
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       Statistical Imaginaries: An ode to responsible data science
        
       Author : nwj
       Score  : 26 points
       Date   : 2021-12-24 02:47 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (zephoria.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (zephoria.substack.com)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | ACow_Adonis wrote:
       | there doesn't seem to be any discussion of this article. But I
       | feel obliged as someone who has worked with official statistics
       | and data science to emphasise how much of a read it is worth.
       | 
       | one of my constant bugbears is even finding other data people who
       | can and will take into consideration the context and uncertainty
       | around the data itself, for in our societies and with our current
       | levels of education and numeracy, there seems to be an bordering
       | mystical connection between data, numbers, and authority. even
       | beauty products, junk science, and conspiracies will often try to
       | convince you with numbers.
       | 
       | and the struggle of how, as a data scientist and statistician, to
       | use numbers in policy with largely innumerate policy makers and
       | populations is an ongoing friction.
       | 
       | for an example on the inherent politics of numbers from my own
       | country, observe the following from our official statistics
       | office:
       | 
       | https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/1370.0
       | 
       | note the date of last publication. this work was subsequently
       | cancelled and will no longer be updated. I'm not here to say
       | whether that was right or wrong, but merely to draw awareness to
       | this tension.
       | 
       | meanwhile, while I was working in official stats, we were always
       | extremely frustrated by the conspiracy theories around the likes
       | of unemployment statistics or cpi. while all stats are inherently
       | political, the amount of bad or invalid critiques of these
       | statistics, as well as the implications that we were trying to
       | generate then in some kind of conspiratorial bad faith was always
       | disappointing.
        
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       (page generated 2021-12-24 23:01 UTC)