On Apr 24, 2013, at 20:01 , Thomas Adams wrote: > One might wonder if the "Excel error" was indeed THAT or perhaps a way to get > the desired results, give the other issues in their analysis?
I think I'd reserve that suspicion for what they did with the NZ data: Growth for 1946-49: 7.7, 11.9, −9.9, and 10.8 -- 1951: -7.6 Those were the 5 years with Debt/GDP > 90%. Obviously, the economy was going up and down like a yoyo. So they retain only the last value, miscode it as -7.9, and give that one year the same weight as decades of positive growth in other countries... > > > On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 11:58 AM, peter dalgaard <pda...@gmail.com> wrote: > In case you haven't noticed, this is making the rounds in the media, > including a handful of references to R. See e.g. > > http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/04/17/0215211/excel-error-contributes-to-problems-with-austerity-study > > I suppose we can't fortune()'ify anonymous quotes, but I kind of like this > exchange: > > "Bacon Bits": "SPSS and R are very good at statistical analysis. Quantrix, > MapleSoft, IBM Algorithmics, and other software is for financial data > modeling. None of those is particularly appropriate for sharing data in a > useful format with peers. Excel is." > > "Hatta": "R is extremely appropriate for sharing data in a useful format with > peers. It's completely free for one. But more importantly, it saves every > single step of your analysis. Send someone an Excel file, and who knows what > they've done to the data. Send someone your R project directory and they can > see exactly what you did. > > The problem with sending R files to your peers isn't that the R files aren't > useful. It's that your peers aren't." > > > > > On Apr 16, 2013, at 19:25 , Sarah Goslee wrote: > > > Given that we occasionally run into problems with comparing Excel > > results to R results, and other spreadsheet-induced errors, I thought > > this might be of interest. > > > > http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems > > > > The punchline: > > > > "If this error turns out to be an actual mistake Reinhart-Rogoff made, > > well, all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the > > core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the > > global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone > > accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel." > > > > Ouch. > > > > (Note: I know nothing about the site, the author of the article, or > > the study in question. I was pointed to it by someone else. But if > > true: highly problematic.) > > > > Sarah > > > > -- > > Sarah Goslee > > http://www.functionaldiversity.org > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > -- > Peter Dalgaard, Professor > Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School > Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark > Phone: (+45)38153501 > Email: pd....@cbs.dk Priv: pda...@gmail.com > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > > -- Peter Dalgaard, Professor, Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark Phone: (+45)38153501 Email: pd....@cbs.dk Priv: pda...@gmail.com ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
