Tag Archives: Cathy O’Neil

Updates on Gerrymandering

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month on gerrymandering. “In a 5-4 decision along traditional conservative-liberal ideological lines, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan redistricting is a political question — not reviewable by federal courts — and that those courts … Continue reading

Posted in Current Events, Math Communication | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Updates on Gerrymandering

On Technology And Harm

Fictional stories about putting too much trust in technology often involve armies of killer robots. But what if some of today’s real threats of improperly checked technology are less thrilling but nevertheless harmful or even deadly? On the bit-player blog, … Continue reading

Posted in Data Science, Mathematics and Computing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on On Technology And Harm

The Fat Tech Cat Diet

Like much of the world, I seem to live in a permanent state of vexation about technology, privacy, and how to survive in a world where so many access points are guarded by hungry algorithm crunching data trolls. This is … Continue reading

Posted in Data Science, Mathematics and Computing | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Fat Tech Cat Diet

Just In Time For The Holidays

Well, I’ve done you a favor and shielded you from these juicy mathematical and political morsels until after Thanksgiving. A recent NPR/PBSNewshour/Marist poll showed that 58% of people were not looking forward to discussing politics at their holiday table, while … Continue reading

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Just In Time For The Holidays

That Neural Net That Predicts Sexual Orientation

A neural network is one way to achieve machine learning. Modeled after the human brain, a neural net teaches a computer how to do some task by processing a huge set of training data. The data passes through the network … Continue reading

Posted in Data Science | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on That Neural Net That Predicts Sexual Orientation

As The Dust Settles, Let’s Check The Numbers

I really didn’t want to write about the election. But probably, much like you, it’s all I can think about right now. News media is completely saturated with it and the blogs are churning out a steady stream of predictions … Continue reading

Posted in Data Science, Events, Issues in Higher Education | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on As The Dust Settles, Let’s Check The Numbers

Math and the Genius Myth

Earlier this month, Science published a paper about the genius myth and gender. It found that when academics in a field think their discipline requires a special innate talent, that field tends to attract fewer women. “We’re not saying women [or … Continue reading

Posted in people in math, women in math | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Bad Statistics: Ignore or Call Out?

Andrew Gelman has been wondering how much time he should spend criticizing crappy research, and so am I. He wrote the post after a discussion with Jeff Leek of Simply Statistics about replication and criticism. Harsh criticism of preliminary studies … Continue reading

Posted in Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Why Should We Fund Math Research?

As my co-blogger Brie Finegold mentioned last month, Cathy O’Neil of mathbabe.org has been writing about how MOOCs might change the face of math departments and, ultimately, how math research gets funded. O’Neil is concerned that without calculus classes to … Continue reading

Posted in Applied Math, Issues in Higher Education, people in math, Theoretical Mathematics | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment