Comments on: Best Curve-Fitting Ever

By: Ray Ladbury

Ray Ladbury — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:12:36 +0000

OK. Does anyone have the original data, because this one is just begging for a treatment with Akaike Information Criterion. You have a bunch of very noisy data, a simple model (linear trend) and a (very, very) complicated model that looks almost, but not quite parabolic–maybe a weibull of some sort. I’d bet the linear trend kicks serious tuckus.

By: ndanger.organism :: blog :: LOTD: 2007-07-15

ndanger.organism :: blog :: LOTD: 2007-07-15 — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:44:56 +0000

[...] Curve fitting. Bad curve fitting. Really bad curve fitting. [...]

By: at Freedom of Science

at Freedom of Science — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 23:37:52 +0000

[...] of Physics Sean Carroll recently threw some stones at economists. According to Doctor Carroll economists cheat their data and they cannot be [...]

By: Newsci Roundup 5 - blogSci.com

Newsci Roundup 5 - blogSci.com — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 08:06:28 +0000

[...] do you fit a curve to some data points? If you have political motives, like this, otherwise, do not do it this [...]

By: Michael D

Michael D — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 01:28:16 +0000

An interesting point made over at Crooked timber with regards Norway as an outlier.

In science, outliers are often easy to dismiss as measurement error, equipment etc. But how can you ignore a REAL country with REAL people?

so you reply well they’ve got oil etc. so we just can. so what about all the other countries with oil or special ‘resources’ or exceptional state of affairs?

read here for more:
http://crookedtimber.org/2007/07/14/outliers/

By: blah

blah — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:19:45 +0000

Take UAE and Norway out as outliers, what is the confidence level of there being a correlation? Looks like random scatter to me.

By: Economists and physicists in the mosh pit « Reassembler

Economists and physicists in the mosh pit « Reassembler — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:00:54 +0000

[...] Economists and physicists in the mosh pit Published July 19th, 2007 Economics , Science! For your edification AND entertainment: A brouhaha on Cosmicvariance (a blog written by physicists and astrophysicists) concerning tax rates, Laffer curves and the manipulation of economic data. [...]

By: sesenta y cuatro

sesenta y cuatro — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:44:17 +0000

Hahahahah!

Great job! It seems that someone actually wanted to discredit Laffer curve and could not find a better way to do it than manipulating these data.

Who’s worst? Economists doing science or scientist doing business? I wonder

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 01:21:34 +0000

AJ on Jul 14th, 2007 at 9:19 am

“Did anyone bother to look up the fact that this line is not being fit to the data?”

It’s just there for decoration?

“It is merely a curve which indicates ‘good’ ratios are below the curve and ‘bad’ ratios are outiside the curve.”

Um, could you repeat that, in a way which makes more sense?

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:21:59 +0000

Brian (#39), what if the tax rate is 110%? 200%? Do you think there is a point along this curve where tax revenue declines? I do (far below 100%, at a guess).

The higher the tax rate, the greater the incentive to plan your taxes carefully. Even for whatever companies would remain under a 100% regime, presumably few accounts would show a net profit, and even fewer a substantial one.