It is quite common in political science for researchers to run statistical models, find that a coefficient for a variable is not statistically significant, and then claim that the variable "has no effect." This is equivalent to proposing a research &#8... [Read more...]

There are quite a few books out now on “data science”. I’ve picked out three that I think are the best place to start for computational journalists. First is Machine Learning for Hackers, by Drew Conway and John Myles White. The autho... [Read more...]

[Read more...]

Summary/TL;DR Either the first precincts to report were widely unrepresentative of Iowa as a whole, or something screwy happened. Background Yesterday was the first primary for the 2012 U.S. presidential elections. When I logged off the internet last night, the results in Iowa showed a dead heat between ... [Read more...]