tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post2567039088877670593..comments2024-02-27T10:53:04.581+01:00Comments on paperpools: spring is just around the cornerHelen DeWitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07619602559096610012noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-79423753529978013472009-02-15T21:19:00.000+00:002009-02-15T21:19:00.000+00:00Andrew, I'm all for raising money for the ASA - th...Andrew, <BR/><BR/>I'm all for raising money for the ASA - though for that matter I would be equally happy if every penny of the proceeds ended up in the pocket of RD. It's not where the money ends <I>up</I> that bothers me, it's the fact that people who might otherwise be drawn to the subject are the left to the likes Mr Gladwell.Helen DeWitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07619602559096610012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-9503447826468900312009-02-15T19:27:00.000+00:002009-02-15T19:27:00.000+00:00I don't know if this makes you feel better or not,...I don't know if this makes you feel better or not, but these short courses are run as a way to raise money for the ASA. The instructor only gets a nominal payment for teaching it.Andrew Gelmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02715992780769751789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-70878005318707025902009-02-13T22:47:00.000+00:002009-02-13T22:47:00.000+00:00A few years ago I was forced to teach a chapter fr...A few years ago I was forced to teach a chapter from Tipping Point. The argument of the Bernie Goetz chapter - as I recall and as you may recall even better - is that context (by which he seems to mean the physical look of a place, as well as a general sense of the level of crime-tolerance in a given area) is largely responsible for crime. I have no way of knowing whether this is true or not; his example certainly didn't help. He wrote about Bernard Goetz. He says that Bernie Goetz lived in the Union Square area, which was filthy and crime-ridden, and that Bernie claimed to have been attacked several times. So he brought a gun with him on the train and opened fire on some muggers (I think they were muggers, can't remember; in any case, they were minorities). But Gladwell also points out that Bernie Goetz was lonely, angry, disturbed, and racist. Which considerably weakens his case, I think, for the importance of "context." Wouldn't the argument have worked better if Gladwell had laid out some examples (backed up by statistics and some beautiful Tuftian graphs) of fairly well-adjusted people committing similar crimes? It's all - or largely - a matter of <BR/>"context": which means that it shouldn't really matter if the subway vigilante wasn't lonely, angry, and a racist, it should only really matter that the place looked and felt crime-ridden. If a man who wasn't lonely, angry, or a racist committed the sort of crime that Goetz committed, that might be interesting - but then again, perhaps not: it would still be only ONE GUY. The fact that we all remember Bernie Goetz probably means that his case was not the norm - which in turn should tell us that it is not necessarily the case that context matters one way or the other. Bernie Goetz was a special case, AND he had enough personal problems and enough of a history to have committed such a crime, so how can one persuasively emphasize context as the predominating factor? Ockhamm's Razor, no?--he clearly has a motive to commit this crime, so why then blame it on the graffiti? Context does matter, but it seems to be the context of Goetz's life, not the larger and much vaguer context of a general sense of crime-riddenness in a given area, that matters most in this particular instance.<BR/><BR/>In a more perfect world, I would have had the pleasure of discussing Erving Goffman or Zygmunt Bauman or Jane Jacobs. Instead they had me waste two weeks and two papers on Malcolm Gladwell.Mithridateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09071591560485370221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-48372366386933129842009-02-12T17:41:00.000+00:002009-02-12T17:41:00.000+00:00thank you for reading and then posting about Outli...thank you for reading and then posting about <I>Outliers</I>! I have seen it crop up over and over again (which is, in itself, very strange since I don't tend to hear much about books like this) and I was suspicious of the author simply because the way in which the book was framed in every article I have read seemed illogical, inconsistent, and targeted in a very strange way. I almost picked it up though, because it was on my radar. But now that you've made the sacrifice, I'll breathe easier knowing it was exactly as I suspected - a mishmash of analysis that could have been interesting had he tried.katehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04207199298463959080noreply@blogger.com