Category Archives: Journalism

THE CATBIRD SEAT—THE BLOG.

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Philip

THE CATBIRD SEAT—THE BLOG. Hawk Harrelson, the long-time White Sox announcer—has a distinctive phrase—“the catbird seat”—which he uses a lot. It describes the desirable position the batter is in when the pitcher throws the first two pitches for balls. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball, Journalism, Sports | 1 Comment

ARE THERE TOO MANY STRIKE OUTS IN BASEBALL?

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Philip

ARE THERE TOO MANY STRIKE OUTS IN BASEBALL? Brian Costa in the Wall Street Journal (May 3-4) argued (here) that baseball is too slow and takes too much time. He points out that the length of the average baseball game … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball, Journalism, Sports | 1 Comment

AN INSTITUTE TO STUDY HOW RESEARCH IS DONE.

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Philip

AN INSTITUTE TO STUDY HOW RESEARCH IS DONE. I have posted a number of times about research by John Ioannidis on statistical studies that overstate the results of studies that have sample sizes that are too small. (see, for example, … Continue reading →

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KEEPING UP WITH THE NEWS IN THE 19TH CENTURY.

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Philip

KEEPING UP WITH THE NEWS IN THE 19TH CENTURY. Mary Jane gave me NEW YORK DIARIES, edited by Theresa Carpenter, which consists of daily excerpts about half a page long from various diaries kept by New Yorkers from 1609 to … Continue reading →

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HOW TEDDY ROOSEVELT STOPPED A CRIME WAVE.

Posted on March 8, 2014 by Philip

HOW TEDDY ROOSEVELT STOPPED A CRIME WAVE. Teddy Roosevelt was in a political bind. There was a reform police board, which Roosevelt—and Steffens and Riis—were supporting. And New York was in the middle of what Steffens calls “one of the … Continue reading →

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HOW A GREAT REPORTER STARTED A CRIME WAVE,

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Philip

HOW A GREAT REPORTER STARTED A CRIME WAVE. Nicholas Lemann discusses how an enterprising journalist created the theory that New Yorkers would not call the police when they saw a crime. Lincoln Steffens, the great journalist and muckraker of a … Continue reading →

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KITTY GENOVESE REVISITED—DO STRANGERS CARE?

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Philip

KITTY GENOVESE REVISITED—DO STRANGERS CARE? Apparently this March 13 is the 50th anniversary of the murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York. The murder became famous because the New York Times reported that 37 people who saw the murder … Continue reading →

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“SCIENCE’S SOKAL MOMENT”.

Posted on December 31, 2013 by Philip

“SCIENCE’S SOKAL MOMENT”. Here in an article from the Economist is an argument against the kind of open-access journals that Professor Schekman praises. John Bohannan, a biologist at Harvard, wrote a fake paper about how a chemical extracted from lichen … Continue reading →

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IN FAVOR OF PUBLISHING MORE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS.

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Philip

IN FAVOR OF PUBLISHING MORE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS. Professor Schekman makes the same point that the Economist made in its cover story entitled “How Science Goes Wrong”, which I posted on here. Some of the wrong papers are being published because, … Continue reading →

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A BOYCOTT OF PRESTIGE SCIENCE JOURNALS.

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Philip

I have posted a number of times reporting on calls for more publication of replication studies and negative results. In 2013, the increased interest in replication studies was capped by an article in the Guardian by Randy Schekman, a winner … Continue reading →

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