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Opinions expressed on these pages were the views of the writers and did not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the American Mathematical Society.
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 Cathy O'Neil, gerrymandering, government, Jeanne Clelland, MAA, Math Values, Princeton Gerrymandering Project, Rachel Levy, Sam Wang, Supreme Court
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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 algorithm, Brian Hayes, Cathy O'Neil, disaster, hazard, mathbabe.org, plane crash, technology
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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 algorithms, Apple, Cathy O'Neil, Google, privacy, Tech
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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 Cathy O'Neil, Election, Election Forecasting, fivethirtyeight, Nate Silver, politics
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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 algorithms, Cathy O'Neil, mathbabe.org, neural networks, sociology
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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 Cathy O'Neil, Chronicle of Higher Ed, Election, Polling
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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 Bethany Brookshire, Cathy O'Neil, genius, genius myth, innate talent, Izabella Laba, women in science
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 Andrew Gelman, bad journalism, bad statistics, Cathy O'Neil, Jeff Leek, John D. Cook, journals
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