Calling Bullshit 2.3: Entertain Multiple Hypotheses

The importance of generating and considering multiple alternative hypotheses. As an example, we consider why men cite themselves more than women do.
Course: INFO 198 / BIOL 106B. University of Washington
Instructors: Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West
Synopsis: Our world is saturated with bullshit. Learn to detect and defuse it.
The course will be offered as a 1-credit seminar this spring through the Information School at the University of Washington. We aim to expand it to a 3 or 4 credit course for 2017-2018. For those who cannot attend in person, we aim to videotape the lectures this spring and make video clips freely available on the web.
callingbullshit...
/ callin_bull
callinBS
[e-mail]
Information School ischool.uw.edu/
Department of Biology www.biology.wa...
Video edited by Bum Mook Oh
Music by Chris Zabriskie: Prelude No.7

[@yuriymankovskyi8682]

Hey, it could also be this tradition of woman taking husband's name after marriage, which must have influenced the self-citing women score to the lower. I was looking forward to hear it , surprised I didn't !

[@wednesdaynitethelab8948]

It is not only in coming up with alternative competing hypotheses, but also in coming up with ways to test among them, that is the distinguishing hallmark of an empirical scientist.

[@Nivola1953]

see whether you think this is BS . The painting in the opening is “The school of Athens” by Raffaello, it’s a fresco in one of the 4 Raffello rooms in the Vatican museums, at the extreme right a small face with black hat in profile is the self portrait of the painter Raffaello.

[@florentlepeytre5482]

What are the yellow lines on the selfcitation ratio graph ?

[@1000buffalos]

Range of + or - error

[@freecycling6687]

It's not hard to anticipate that (anti)social media will behave that way. So one way to participate in the battle against bullshit might be to avoid stating outright lots of "alternatives" in the original paper, knowing they will be misunderstood and cause the REST of the paper to "not be read."

[@freecycling6687]

Generally speaking - shouldn't the most OBVIOUS explanation, i.e. men have more papers to self-cite, be cited in the paper as the LIKELY cause, and shouldn't THAT be the explanation which the study attempts to validate?

[@havenbastion]

My guess is: women tend to move on to different subjects while men tend to build on previous works.

[@iloveairsoftnl]

and still not a single reply from the channel on the comments