Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 26/11/2024Now I've come across several instances of people writing, essentially: 'Let me provide a very rough estimate. Don't take this number literally, because it has several flaws.' And then their number becomes cited as the canonical figure on the topic. 2726441
Matt Clancy @mattsclancy.bsky.social · 26/11/2024This is actually fine so long as The Law of Offsetting Complicating Factors holds. 030
Volodia @volodia11.bsky.social · 26/11/2024The number of "dead by communism" (100 million) was made up, even the co authors of the book blamed the one one who made that number up but it’s now become the "official" number that you cannot contradict . I’m not a communist but I hate this kind of "post-truth”. 010
screaming android󠄞󠅑󠅣󠅛󠄐󠅝󠅕󠄐󠅑󠅒󠅟󠅥󠅤󠄐󠅠󠅑󠅞󠅓󠅑󠅛󠅕󠅣 @tussles-shriek.bsky.social · 26/11/2024When I first encountered that I was a bit surprised. It was my own extremely vapid estimate that became a very hard number at work. Then I started noticing that happening everywhere. And now it is hard to trust most "common knowledge" number. 020
Johannes Haushofer @johanneshaushofer.com · 26/11/2024I think (actually… I heard) this is how Kibera ended up as Africa’s largest informal settlement with 1M people @kareninkenya.bsky.social 3151
3 Dog Dad @3dogdad.bsky.social · 12/02/2025Saw this at one of my jobs. If that "rough estimate" is a number people like it becomes gospel truth for years, plugged into hundreds of P&L's and funding requests. 010
Matt Collin @mattcollin.bsky.social · 26/11/2024This is pretty much all work on corruption and money laundering 130
Rohan Alexander @rohanalexander.bsky.social · 26/11/2024Fisher and what is a significant p value comes to mind as somewhat related. 1230
Tomato Soup @souptomatosoup.uk · 26/11/2024This happened to me once with a policy due to go into the UK Budget, noone listened every time I said it was a number we couldn't publish until the OBR (independent review of numbers before publishing) asked to talk to the analyst to understand 030
Stephen Smith @gsds3.bsky.social · 26/11/2024This is basically every other episode of More Or Less. 000
Rohit @strangeloopcanon.com · 26/11/2024What percentage of people do you reckon? Give us a ballpark figure. 1111
Pseudoerasmus @pseudoerasmus.bsky.social · 26/11/2024you only noticed this now?? it’s routine in economic history! 130
Nathan @handle.invalid · 26/11/2024For me, I want to destigmatise making up numbers. How do you feel about that? 100
Alex Petropoulos 🤠 @alextpet.bsky.social · 26/11/2024As a rough estimate, how often would you say this happens? 030
Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 26/11/2024Recent low risk drinking guidelines in the UK, Canada and Australia have leaned heavily on the principle that the public are willing to accept a 1 in 100 lifetime risk of dying from activities we voluntarily engage in. This comes from a 1969 paper by Starr. Here's what we thought of that: 250
Cameron @cameron.stream · 26/11/2024As a recovering economist, this is literally every single number we have ever mentioned 1200
Lauren Gilbert @lgilbert.co · 26/11/2024I worry a lot one of my dubious estimations is going to become a number people cite. 020
Leon Black @drleonblack.bsky.social · 26/11/2024I've seen it many times referring to carbon emissions from cement and concrete. Back of the envelope calculations quoted unthinkingly, and some absolute nonsense from people who should know better. 010
Gerard @groverxv.bsky.social · 27/11/2024You've just described the 2% Target Inflation Rate in almost all western economies #NOOOOZEALAND #WeWerentBeingSerious 000
Goose and Squirrel @mooseandsquirrel.bsky.social · 26/11/2024Exactly like every single episode of ancient aliens… 000
Thomas Blanchet @thomasblanchet.bsky.social · 26/11/2024I gave up on academia after seeing a few too many of: "I made up that number, but will only make that clear in some obscure appendix, giving me plausible deniability against accusations of fraud, while betting on enough readers to be too lazy to question it, so that the figure becomes widely cited." 020
Onisillos @onisillos.bsky.social · 26/11/2024media.tenor.coman astronaut is looking at the earth with the words " always has been " above himAlt: an astronaut is looking at the earth with the words " always has been " above him 000
Erin Hengel @erinhengel.bsky.social · 26/11/2024Or somebody asks what the correlation between X and Y in your data is, you show it in appendix Z (emphasising that it’s just a correlation and should not be interpreted as a robust causal relationship) and then read later “robust causal relationship of X on Y shown in Hengel”. 120
Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 26/11/2024This stuff gets worse when people don't even cite the original source, so future citers can't easily trace it back to see how rough the original estimate was. 1430
Mridul K. Thomas @mridulkthomas.bsky.social · 26/11/2024Also true of new measures & metrics! www.smbc-comics.com/comic/metricssmbc-comics.comSaturday Morning Breakfast CerealSaturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Metrics 050
Marios Richards @mariosrichards.bsky.social · 26/11/2024It's fine if the number doesn't really matter. Obvious case, "6 million Jews died in the holocaust" - was a highly approximate and clearly heavily caveated number. But it doesn't matter because there's no point made by "6 million" that isn't also made by "4/5/7/3/2 million". 110