[HN Gopher] Mathiness
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Mathiness
Author : adzicg
Score : 68 points
Date : 2024-09-27 09:48 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.votito.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.votito.com)
| cjs_ac wrote:
| > In Calling Bullshit, the authors give the example of the
| Virginia Mason Quality Equation Q = [Ax(O+S)/W] (Quality equals
| Appropriateness times the sum of Outcomes and Service divided by
| Waste), a formula used for improving operations management in
| healthcare.
|
| I think it's best to think of this as an overextended metaphor,
| rather than a clumsy attempt to provide a rigorous relationship.
| The message to take away from this 'equation' is:
|
| * more appropriateness means more quality; * better outcomes
| means more quality; * better service means more quality; * less
| waste means more quality.
|
| It's a small minority of people who give a shit about
| mathematics. The children who used to whine about, 'When are we
| every going to use this?' grow up to be adults who complain about
| not having learnt about how to complete their tax returns at
| school.
|
| The equation above is an _aide de memoire_ for people managing
| healthcare facilities. It 's irrelevant to people who understand
| that it's an abuse of mathematical ideas.
|
| The 'Fixing mathiness' section, however, is very good. This
| article is from a survey company, so this is about increasing the
| validity of the results you get from their product, but it speaks
| to the problem of inappropriate statistical methods being used to
| manufacture signals from noise.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That equation predicts that great service can outweigh net
| negative outcomes.
| nbbnbb wrote:
| See you wrote it in a clearly understandable way without
| abusing mathematics or giving any credence to mathematics
| being involved in the concept.
| solveit wrote:
| Only if they are measured on a scale allowing negative values
| for outcomes and sufficiently high values for service. It
| would be unsurprising to have outcomes measured from zero and
| service topping out at 100%. The equation doesn't say
| anything remotely precise, it's just a bundle of vibes.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > It would be unsurprising to have outcomes measured from
| zero
|
| Assuming that you can never make anybody worse off than
| they were before you showed up would be a _much worse_
| abuse.
| roenxi wrote:
| I'd read it as a symptom of something going pretty badly wrong.
| For example, imagine a funny scenario where a business decides
| that it needs to use computers to improve efficiency. Some
| desktop towers are bought. The front-line employees use them as
| the physical foundation for a new table that they needed and
| report "mission accomplished" up the chain. The problem in this
| scenario is that while technically yes, real problems are being
| solved with the suggested tool someone here is badly, badly out
| of touch with what needs to be happening to see real
| improvement.
|
| Similarly here, if there is a formula that stupid being used,
| even as a memory aid, it suggests to me that real lives could
| be saved if they embed a few real Ops Research specialists
| somewhere important instead of whatever they are doing.
| nbbnbb wrote:
| Using an equation to represent this is dishonest. It assumes
| linearity and proportionality between variables which may not
| be the case. Also none of the terms are really measurable. You
| might as well write statements instead.
|
| I mean try defining waste and quality.
|
| Fundamentally, and to use a non-mathematical term appropriately
| in context, it is a load of bollocks. It is used to make simple
| ideas look like they are rigorously defined to people without
| the tools to interpret them. And that is dishonest.
|
| As for inappropriate statistical methods, survey companies are
| a breeding ground for providing tools which the results of are
| not interpreted with any statistical rigour or language.
|
| Source: annoyed mathematician.
| buescher wrote:
| >I think it's best to think of this as an overextended metaphor
|
| It may be best, I agree, but it's not what people do. I've seen
| enough people with advanced degrees take things like FMEA risk
| priority numbers or adding up the numbers in a Pugh matrix very
| literally, not as a basis for discussion and insight.
|
| >The children who used to whine about, 'When are we every going
| to use this?' grow up to be adults who complain about not
| having learnt about how to complete their tax returns at
| school.
|
| I've seen my former classmates complain on Facebook about not
| having been taught things ("there should be a class in high
| school!") that were absolutely taught in the dumb state
| required classes.
| ccppurcell wrote:
| I'm very skeptical of this view. Additive relationships and
| multiplicative relationships differ dramatically; the
| difference is related to linear Vs non linear phenomena. If all
| you mean is "positively correlated" and "negatively correlated"
| then you should just say that (or words to that affect).
| patrickmay wrote:
| Exactly this. The equation also fails simple dimensional
| analysis -- it's nonsense.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I could think of a bunch of simpler ways to state this equation
| without the baloney false math (similar to the paraphrasing you
| did).
|
| No, the purpose of putting this into an "equation" is to imply
| false rigor, and simultaneously to imply that you should hire
| our people to implement our "healthcare quality framework". I
| mean, would people really think this is any sort of non-obvious
| advice if you simply stated, "To improve quality, you should
| improve appropriateness of treatments, improve outcomes and
| improve service, and reduce waste." I mean, no shit Sherlock.
| But once you put it into an "equation", you're deliberately,
| and falsely, implying "Oooh, science!"
| wheatgreaser wrote:
| so much of economics is just mathiness
| hgomersall wrote:
| The term was introduced by Romer with respect to economics and
| predates the book referenced in the article:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathiness
| spelufo wrote:
| What is bullshit is the attempt to appropriate a useful neutral
| adjective to mean more than it does. Mathy is just mathy. Physics
| is more mathy than psychology. Too mathy can be bad, sure.
| dgacmu wrote:
| You may not be familiar with the "truthiness" term/meme it is a
| reference to.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness
|
| H/t Colbert.
| projektfu wrote:
| I see it as attempting to provide a patina of quantifiability
| for an essentially qualitative or incalculable result. If it is
| actually used as a measure, then it will lead to horrible
| distortion. The "next article" on the site is about OKRs
| (objectives and key results) and how they can be used to
| motivate and also destroy motivation, inspire and also make
| people afraid, by how faithfully you stick to the measurement
| and how much you assume the Os and KRs are actually tied to
| business results. The example of the Virginia Mason Quality
| Equation is somewhat egregious because it is presented as an
| equation but nothing in it is properly quantifiable, the units
| are meaningless, and the authors say it's not to be calculated.
|
| However, there is value in putting everything in a mnemonic so
| that you remember its parts, and what adds and subtracts from
| the results. Amazon shipping and FedEx Express have different
| types of quality. Amazon is next-day or better for virtually
| everything and unreliable. It comes with a guarantee to refund
| the cost of shipping, which is 0 in most cases. FedEx Express
| has varying service levels at increasing costs for performance
| and includes meaninful guarantees and insurance tied to the
| performance goal. If Amazon fails to deliver on time, it is
| frustrating but probably not typically enough to make the user
| quit using the service or attempt to sue, as they didn't pay
| for specific service and they are satisfied with the overall
| expediency of the service. If FedEx Express had Amazon levels
| of performance, they would lose to competitors who are willing
| to provide the requested service, regardless of whether they
| refund people's delivery charges. Putting it back in the
| equation, the Appropriateness of the service dominates the
| difference between Amazon Shipping and FedEx Express, where
| Amazon can tolerate more bad outcomes in their model and FedEx
| can tolerate more waste (higher fees). Amazon can impress you
| with same-day delivery you didn't ask for while FedEx has no
| need to do so, people want merely on-time delivery at the price
| level they requested.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| In the past century Psychology transformed from speculative
| writing combined with clinical observation, to sophisticated
| statistical analysis and attempt to follow scientific methods,
| because many audiences including yourself believe that makes it
| more true.
| mistercow wrote:
| > In Calling Bullshit, the authors give the example of the
| Virginia Mason Quality Equation Q = [Ax(O+S)/W]
|
| I read somewhere (maybe in Thinking, Fast and Slow?), that
| formulas like this can actually be surprisingly effective, even
| though the units don't make sense, because they encode an
| intuition but prevent you from putting your finger on the scale
| when applying it, by mixing in other biases. IIRC, the studies on
| this found that trying to tune these formulas by adding in
| weights tended to make them worse, which is especially
| surprising.
|
| I'll have to see if I can dig up the reference on this.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Adding quantities of wildly different units is totally unsound
| [1].
|
| ______________
|
| [1] except in machine learning
| RhysU wrote:
| OLS legitimately incorporates all unit conversions in the
| betas. That's gross but sound.
| solveit wrote:
| If at the end of the day you have to compare wildly different
| things, you have to compare wildly different things. Usually
| this will involve making a judgment call about how to weigh
| these things, or in other words, selecting units for the
| purpose of adding quantities of wildly different units.
| oli5679 wrote:
| I think Paul Romer, economics Nobel laureate, coined this term in
| 2015
|
| https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.p20151066
|
| " Mathiness lets academic politics masquerade as science. Like
| mathematical theory, mathiness uses a mixture of words and
| symbols, but instead of making tight links, it leaves ample room
| for slippage between statements in the languages of words as
| opposed to symbols, and between statements with theoretical as
| opposed to empirical content. Because it is difficult to
| distinguish machines from mathematical theory, the market for
| lemons tells us that the market for mathematical theory might
| collapse, leaving only machines as entertainment that is worth
| little but cheap to produce."
| sdwr wrote:
| Following from "truthiness", coined by Stephen Colbert in 2005
| to describe the state of politics.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness
| dash2 wrote:
| Romer's examples aren't quite the same as what this page talks
| about. He describes papers where the maths is valid - the
| conclusions follow from the premises - but it's not tightly
| tied to the real world via words.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I always often feel this way about folks who give probability
| based estimates of their certainty, instead of just describing
| their level of certainty with human language. Some caveats for
| things like 99%, which can be said in a way that makes it clear
| that it is actually just being used as and expression.
|
| A funny way to describe 95% certainty, among a certain type of
| nerd at least, is a "critical failure." IMO it is a nice way of
| expressing the fact that you'd be very surprised to be wrong, but
| then, D&D has a whole mechanic about 1-in-20 events happening
| occasionally. All without any numbers.
| buescher wrote:
| 95% certainty is also, for a normal distribution, two standard
| deviations. Two sigma events happen very regularly.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/68%E2%80%9395%E2%80%9399.7_r...
| motohagiography wrote:
| so all of economics, basically.
|
| a mitigating argument for mathiness is that we use math to
| describe shapes and relationships we can't physically see, and
| how do you contruct an analogy for a dynamic between factors (or
| narrative elements) without using changing quantities?
|
| Is the analogy a useful abstraction, or does it provide
| consistency with lower or higher levels of abstraction, or have
| external consistency with the rest of maths? Probably not, but as
| an application that is sufficient for its purposes, some
| mathiness enables people to separate the things they talk about
| from just their personal animal interests.
|
| Sure, some people want more from the math, and economics is a
| great gateway to math because it's probably one of the most
| sophiticated systems of bullshit ouside string theory, and it
| provokes the desire for rigour.
|
| Math isn't evidence, it's the lens, and you can reject mathiness
| in anything by just declining to accept that lens.
| bbor wrote:
| Well put! I'm personally a big Marx fan so I won't give you
| _all_ of economics, but let's say "lots" ;)
|
| I feel strongly that math is a set of intellectual tools for
| dealing with quantities rigorously, so "lens" seems absolutely
| correct to me. As they say in formal logic: an argument can be
| sound (well-constructed, uses its tools properly) without being
| valid (accurate to the actual world) if it employs some bad
| premises. Which new economics does in spades by constructing
| inaccurate metrics to do their math with.
|
| Which, hey, I don't blame em. As the other top HackerNews
| thread rn on Efficiency and Metrics teaches us: when you're
| dealing with the actual world, you can basically never have a
| _flawless_ virtual metric.
| motohagiography wrote:
| what makes him so evil to me is that where we start with math
| or geometry and a notion of perfection that we can
| extrapolate from- one which humans are uniquely imbued to
| appreciate and emulate, he eschewed the quantiative and
| replaced it with viral language and sold it as somehow more
| material and "real."
|
| with any contemplation at all the existence of geometry has
| necessary and unavoidable moral implications about the
| possible intent of a creator, and it's hard to see how
| constructing an ideology to dissolve our connection to those
| is anything other than a poison. he was a snake and a pimp
| who wrote a mind virus for self-enslavement as a way to
| separate people from the dignity of their own humanity. math
| is not a mystery cult either, and I sympathize with
| professionals seeing their discipline used for bullshit, but
| gatekeeping its tools only to initiates should be treated as
| suspect. to scholars i would say either enlighten people or
| fuck off, as they aren't equipped for what real gatekeeper
| personalities are capable of, and a little knowledge won't
| save you from them.
| fjordingo wrote:
| Agree with the underlying thesis of the post, but wonder if their
| criteria suffers the same issues as the thing they are being
| critical of.
|
| I wonder what the author would think of the Drake Equation or
| quantum mechanic's superposition, as they seem to check a good
| deal of these boxes but are widely regarded.
| xeonmc wrote:
| This post essentially described Pincipal Component Analysis in
| its entirety.
|
| Trying to find eigencomponents in a mixing of incompatible units
| means that your result is completely arbitrary to the scale
| factor of your units.
|
| And "fixing" the dimensionality by choosing an arbitrary
| normalization factor only further increases its mathiness factor.
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| 1. If I wanted to use PCA, is there a better approach than
| normalization? I am asking because you seem better at math than
| I (based on your comment history).
|
| 2. Not that PCA is my favorite technique, but you can apply PCA
| to data that are expressed in the same units.
|
| 3. Do you oppose most clustering techniques since one can apply
| them to mixed units data?
| bbor wrote:
| Woah that's an unexpected and very hot take! What application
| of PCA are you familiar with that's flawed? I learned it in the
| context of data science, where a) parameter normalization is a
| very important setup step, and b) it has directly observable
| empirical success.
|
| Like, I believe you that it's used for Mathiness bs by some
| people, but disregarding it in its entirety seems like
| disregarding linear regression, or, idk, long division. I
| didn't realize that was an option!
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| I partially attribute this issue to this paper from 2012:
|
| "The abstract that included the meaningless mathematics tended to
| be judged of higher quality. However, this "nonsense math effect"
| was not found among participants with degrees in mathematics,
| science, technology or medicine."
|
| https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decisio...
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Mathiness + AI
| User23 wrote:
| This makes me wonder if there is some useful way to apply lattice
| theory to software development estimation. Essentially, take the
| tasks and compose a lattice using a "definitely harder than"
| relation. While we are observably bad at predicting just how hard
| a task is, I believe we can do a much better job of answering is
| A definitely harder than B with a yes or no. And if we can't then
| we provide no answer while building the lattice.
|
| And then, well I have no idea. I'd have to build some examples
| and play with them.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yes you can do pairwise comparison and ranking of subjective
| things (how long will this task take) to get a less arbitrary
| measure of it.
|
| In the past I've done this for consumer product testing - if
| you ask someone to rate hair straightness out of 10... it's
| just really difficult and inconsistent. But you can show them
| two photos they can usually pick the best, even if it feels
| pretty arbitrary.
|
| Bradley-Terry is the standard method, it's extremely easy to
| use.
|
| I have never seen anyone try it for bug estimation though. I
| think it would be too much effort and tbh the industry hasn't
| even figured out that you need to be able to write down
| confidence for estimates yet. There's a long way to go before
| we start doing things properly.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| Sophisticated marketing annd political campaigns include
| everything from bikini clad women to academic papers.
|
| Using mathematical language is always a rhetorical choice to
| suggest precision and authority.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| T-Shirt sizes?
|
| > Without a numerical value, such estimates cannot be misused
| easily in mathematical formulas.
|
| Those units will still be misused and even abused. "What does an
| M mean in days?", you'll be asked. And voila, there's a number.
| And, if there's a number there's some equation in which it'll be
| used.
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