Ethics

Nate Silver Demonstrates Importance of Control Groups

By Ed Brayton

A major meme flying around the blogosphere the last few days is the claim that the Obama administration has punished its political opponents by putting Chrysler dealerships that support Republicans on the list of dealerships to be closed due to the bankruptcy while leaving dealerships that support Democrats off that list. This conspiracy theory has even spawned its own special blog.

Proponents of this theory point to specific dealerships with Democratic leanings who were left off the closing list and specific dealerships with Republican leanings placed on the list. And to the fact that most of the dealerships on the list donated to Republicans. But Nate Silver, the stats expert behind 538.com, attempts to educate these folks on the importance of having a control group.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on June 01, 2009 (boomark / email).