Stupid question of the day

CrashedMint · March 1st, 2011, 2:14 pm

Is there a fancy word for, better yet papers on "overkill modeling"? I need a term to get the google scholar search going.Am reading some sociological papers and they use very little unrepresentative data, then from this data they build the weirdest and most complex structural equations. It all sure looks real sciencey, but I think it's crap à la: Likelihood that consumer A buys from brand B = consumer age * 0.377 y + education / 0.14x + (number of pans in the kitchen)^2 - 0.000012 * 1/sqrt(ln(e)) * sqrt(price).I mean, seriously people?:

Cuchulainn · March 1st, 2011, 2:19 pm

FCM See the books of Bart Kosko.And at skule, kids do FCM minus the edge weights. Called concept maps. I use them (sometimes) when analysing large s/w systems. FCM are used to brainstorm on causality, limit cycle analysis. For people in Think Tanks?

Hansi · March 1st, 2011, 2:25 pm

Data mining and over fitting in-sample data without much intuitive sense? The whole financial industry has fallen into this trap at one time or another. Well maybe not to this ridiculous an extend.

Traden4Alpha · March 1st, 2011, 5:08 pm

As long as the data is deep enough and it passes well-formed out-of-sample tests, I see nothing wrong with the models you cited. Models of people's behaviour often have complex structures and non-linear terms because people are complex and non-linear.The difference between sciencey and science can't be discerned from the model, only from the underlying methods that created the model.If only people were more like protons. But they're not.

tagoma · March 1st, 2011, 8:00 pm

i remember semantic space graphs as i studied science of information, with advanced links between entries. and, i remember the theory of the click and other complex structured representation of individual and group behaviours as i studied institutional economics.it seemed to me as 'science'.

ppauper · March 2nd, 2011, 9:20 am

it's now wednesday, what about today's stupid question ?

Fermion · March 2nd, 2011, 4:43 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: ppauperit's now wednesday, what about today's stupid question ?I guess that was it.

Traden4Alpha · March 2nd, 2011, 6:54 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: FermionQuoteOriginally posted by: ppauperit's now wednesday, what about today's stupid question ?I guess that was it.Good one, Fermion!

rmax · March 3rd, 2011, 9:09 am

So who is going to ask today's stupid question?D'oh.

Cuchulainn · March 3rd, 2011, 10:10 am

daveangel · March 3rd, 2011, 10:16 am

QuoteSo who is going to ask today's stupid question?Why can't we all just try and get along ?

tagoma · June 11th, 2014, 6:14 pm

When will they put entire movies in .GIF files?

tagoma · June 14th, 2014, 10:13 am

When did greed (love of good food) first appear?

katastrofa · June 14th, 2014, 11:42 am

"Do you like bees?"I've been asked it twice in one week by some random people in the street. Some bees support campaign? I guess it doesn't work too well when the campaigners look more like corpo-rats.aor is this some code meaning that I look fat? bees-obese?

Traden4Alpha · June 14th, 2014, 11:52 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: katastrofa"Do you like bees?"I've been asked it twice in one week by some random people in the street. Some bees support campaign? I guess it doesn't work too well when the campaigners look more like corpo-rats.aor is this some code meaning that I look fat? bees-obese?Maybe it's because A's get all the attention?