16 JUL 2013 by ideonexus

 The Web is the Death of the Anecdote

Surveillance serves not just as a legal and historical record but as a record of rep: proof that you’ve done what you say you’ve done. You bark, and anyone on the mesh can search to see if you also bite. It’s the foundation of the reputation economy. It’s not just video, of course, but surveillance of all types. Ubiquitous, ever-present surveillance has become the new public record in countless habitats. You’ve seen the phrase, “Links or didn’t happen,” right? Without footage...
Folksonomies: evidence anecdotes oral history
Folksonomies: evidence anecdotes oral history
  1  notes

"Links or it didn't happen," if something is not on video, the oral history is worthless.

15 APR 2011 by ideonexus

 The plural of anecdote is not data

A common way anecdotal evidence becomes unscientific is through fallacious reasoning such as the Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, the human tendency to assume that if one event happens after another, then the first must be the cause of the second. Another fallacy involvesinductive reasoning. For instance, if an anecdote illustrates a desired conclusion rather than a logical conclusion, it is considered a faulty orhasty generalization.[10] For example, here is anecdotal evidence...
Folksonomies: statistics logical fallacy logic
Folksonomies: statistics logical fallacy logic
   notes

How anecdotal evidence proves nothing.

23 JAN 2011 by ideonexus

 A Reason Not to Use Bookmarks

The plural of anecdotes is not data — but anecdotes are all I have. We don’t yet understand how we think or what it means to change the way we think. Scientists are making inroads and ultimately hope to understand much more. But right now all I and my fellow contributors can do are make observations and generalize. ... Someone pointed out to me once that he, like me, never uses a bookmark in a book. I always attributed my negligence to disorganization and laziness — the few times I atte...
Folksonomies: internet technology
Folksonomies: internet technology
  1  notes

A bookmark is an artificial place in a book, without which we return to the last point in a book that made an impact on your brain.

These are notes summarizing comments made by speakers and audience during this session:

  • Are you a geek? When telling a story, how often do you elaborate on the details? Baseball stat geek, science detail geek, D&D geek, all about details.
  • What actually constitutes a geek?
  • Student: it’s good to be a geek, it means someone who is passionate about something.
  • Student: Geek is starting to be glamorized. Big Bang Theory, Harry Potter movie.
  • Radio Show Host: compares herself to scientists, and doesn’t think herself a geek, but the audience is geeks (Skeptically Speaking). Considers herself a translator. Geeks listen more closely to the show, and send emails. Geeks provide feedback.
  • “You call it geekery, I call it passion.”
  • Geeks distrust social niceties. Why aren't they just giving me the information straight? Tendency towards argumentation.
  • What are Benefits and Pitfalls of a Geeky audience? Bonus is passion. Geeks get immersed in details, and have a self-generating energy and will keep working through things left to their own.
  • Geeks don’t see correcting others as a slight.
  • Accuracy VS Completeness: don’t ever say false things, but you don’t have to get totally immersed.
  • Geeks are obsessive enough that they will voluntarily seek out details on their own.
  • How to delineate between being too geeky and not geeky enough? Keep things entertaining as a means of keeping people with your content. If it’s entertaining, people will stick with you through the sciency parts.
  • Make sure your headline and introduction are not for geeks, but you can geek out later in the story. Skeptchick uses humor to open all posts, post about Twilight.  Scicurious has posts that reach out to her audience, Friday posts about sex.
  • Catchphrases and Inside Jokes create communities, but they also put up walls to communities.
  • Surprise people with a story, ask a question to pique curiosity about how it will affect people personally,
  • Whatstheharm.net – anecdotes. Turns on non-geeks, but turns off geeks because we want data. What’s the difference between whatstheharm.net and Rush Limbaugh using anecdotes to hurt science?
  • Snark: a way of building a community, but causes pile-ons, turns off outsiders, PZMeyers’ fans attack whoever he points them too. Snark is the nature of the Internet. Radio difference: no snark rule.
  • Use snark to empower the weak against the powerful. Use it against trolls against power.
  • Try going with a private comment first before going public.
  • Remember that it’s the internet, your tone doesn't communicate in the text.
  • Don’t do threaded comments.
  • You’re going to offend someone. Radio got called a Marxist for her show on gender.