--- In [email protected], new.morning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > http://istpp.org/crime_prevention/voodoo_rebuttal.html#note1 > > Someone brought up the name Maxwell Rainforth so I pulled up this > article. Some interesting points. > > However, look at the graphs. In the link. See how many flaws you can > find in his argument? > > Among some -- reaching conclusions based on: > > Comparing a five year graph with a one year graph. > > The five year graph is averaged. look at HRA scale. Much lower than > 1993 scale, as would be expected -- crime growing over time. But the > averaging cancels out variations in each year. Without comparing the > individual 1988-1992 annual graphs, with their inherent fluctuations, > to the 1993 graph, his argument is baseless. The fact that he does not > do that annual to annual comparision makes me assume he is hiding "the > obvious" -- annual variations will be much greater than a five year > averaged one and disprove his point. > > And of course, eye-balling, as he is asking us to do, is always good > to confirm reasonability of statistical findings. But it is not in > iteslf a statistical conclusion. He manually "centered" temperature on > top of crimes. Lots of lattitude in that to make it look "good". Thats > why statistical regression is used to find the "best" fit, not an > eyeballed fit. > > And look at march, may and oct of 93. These months also have crime to > temperature variations, although not as big as the DC project. What > explains those variations. Unaccounted factors. As may well explain > the DC variation. > > And later, he dismisses a doubling of the murder rate during the > course from 10/mo to 20/, as an "outlier". Thats convenient. >
It was an outlier within the course itself. It was a one-week aberration due to a gang fight that saw 10 deaths in one incident, IIRC. > Thus far, I am not particularly impressed with the objectivity of this > guy. > >
