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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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Data literacy is your own responsibility

Yeah, but I'm talking about availability and legibility, not literacy. If you don't think people who already worked on the data should pass on their work on the former two, there's no point in publishing any numbers in the paper at all. Just say "Immigrants commit less crime. Don't believe me? Check for yourself, chud!".

it’s often common to publish the code you used to run your analysis in the supplemental material section.

a) How much you want to bet they didn't do it in this case?

b) The code on it's own is not particularly useful without the input data, and just constitutes a "fuck you citation". This is the entire thing I've been driving at all along

Furthermore, you’re implying that recent immigration is obviously related to higher crime

I'm doing no such thing. I'm pointing out how trivial it is to manipulate data, even if the actual truth is the opposite of what the data is showing.

it’s often common to publish the code you used to run your analysis in the supplemental material section.

How much you want to bet they didn't do it in this case?

Idk. $50?

It’s not that uncommon of a practice.

Here, fuck it. I’ll save you the trouble.

Let’s find the study. Here it is:

https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/unauthorized-immigration-crime-and-recidivism-evidence-texas-0

Very first line: tells you where to get the data. Good sign.

Now open the actual pdf.

Go to the end of the report.

Hey, look at that! There’s a link for all the code and data used in the study.

https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/124923/version/V1/view

That page is interesting, they share metrics and it looks like 224 people have all downloaded the data and code they shared. Open science is definitively the way to go!

I’m digging around, and wow, they even provide a document called replication_instructions to walk people through the process of replicating their analysis. That’s really going all the way for open and reproducible analyses.

I’ll drop the $50 down to just an: “I was wrong, maybe I shouldn’t make such quick assumptions”.

I was wrong, maybe I shouldn’t make such quick assumptions

...Though they are fun (which is why this probably won't get me to stop)!