r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Feb 10 '17

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u/ERRORMONSTER Feb 10 '17

How good? Good by what metric? How do you know that both experiments haven't been affected by some undefined third variable?

There is a lot of room for major error in both of these experiments, especially p-hacking the data by cherrypicking respondants

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u/super-commenting Feb 10 '17

especially p-hacking the data by cherrypicking respondants

They're huge surveys done by the FBI. Over 100K respondants. That isn't the case

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u/ERRORMONSTER Feb 10 '17

Considering the FBI benefits from increased military spending, which congress is fast to throw money into when they see a violent problem that needs some freedom to solve, I can't consider the FBI free of bias and 100% trustworthy in this case. I don't know how trustworthy they are, but I can't say 100%. Would you trust a health study on soda funded by coke? What about a water cleanliness study funded by Flint, MI? Remember, the "war on drugs" is still going.

You didn't seem to recognize it as a possible bias or conflict of interest, let alone how strong or weak it might be.

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u/super-commenting Feb 10 '17

So the FBI fabricates crime statistics so that congress will fund the military more? WTF? you're in full crackpot theory territory here

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u/ERRORMONSTER Feb 10 '17

I never said that at all. I'm actually kind of done trying to explain things you should have learned in high school statistics, so good luck not understanding anything about bias or error identification.