Most popular posts of 2024

John Cook writes that he looked on Hacker News to see which of his posts were most popular: “I [Cook] didn’t look at my server logs, but generally the posts that get the most traffic are posts that someone submits to Hacker News.”

I don’t look at my server logs either–that way lies madness! My question is, how much should we trust the popularity ranking from Hacker News?

I don’t know much about Hacker News myself. I went there and entered statmodeling in the search box, and by default it lists in order of popularity. Here are the first two pages of the most popular from 2024:

Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/07/31/suspicious-data-pattern-in-recent-venezuelan-election/) 903 points|kgwgk|5 months ago|470 comments

Bayesian Statistics: The three cultures (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/07/10/three-cultures-bayes-subjective-objective-pragmatic/) 309 points|luu|5 months ago|109 comments

The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/01/07/french-bio-lab-research-scandal/) 230 points|Tomte|1 year ago|140 comments

Bad stuff going down at the American Sociological Association (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/01/17/bad-stuff-going-down-at-the-american-sociological-association/) 129 points|Tomte|1 year ago|116 comments

Those correction notices, in full (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/11/24/those-correction-notices-in-full-yes-its-possible-to-directly-admit-and-learn-from-error/) 128 points|Tomte|1 month ago|35 comments

Dean of Engineering at University of Nevada wrote a paper that’s bad (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/02/06/its-bezzle-time-the-dean-of-engineering-at-the-university-of-nevada-gets-paid-372127-a-year-and-wrote-a-paper-thats-so-bad-you-cant-believe-it-i-mean-really-you-have-to-take-a-look-at-t/) 123 points|Tomte|11 months ago|79 comments

Defining Statistical Models in Jax? (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/10/08/defining-statistical-models-in-jax/#comments) 118 points|hackandthink|3 months ago|18 comments

Critique of Freakonomics interview with psychologist Ellen Langer (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/10/28/freakonomics-does-it-again-not-in-a-good-way-jeez-these-guys-are-credulous/) 94 points|nabla9|2 months ago|82 comments

Refuted papers continue to be cited more than their failed replications (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/03/10/refuted-papers-continue-to-be-cited-more-than-their-failed-replications-can-a-new-search-engine-be-built-that-will-fix-this-problem/) 79 points|nabla9|10 months ago|34 comments

Well-known paradox of R-squared is still buggin me (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/06/17/this-well-known-paradox-of-r-squared-is-still-buggin-me-can-you-help-me-out/) 71 points|luu|6 months ago|103 comments

Levels of fraud: One-time, Linear, and Exponential (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/09/27/3-levels-of-fraud-one-time-linear-and-exponential/) 4 points|Tomte|3 months ago|0 comments

You can guarantee that the term “statistical guarantee” will irritate me (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/07/05/you-can-guarantee-that-the-term-statistical-guarantee-will-irritate-me-heres-why-and-lets-go-into-some-details/) 4 points|Tomte|6 months ago|0 comments

Is it really “the economy, stupid”? (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/05/11/is-it-really-the-economy-stupid/) 4 points|munichpavel|8 months ago|0 comments

What are the best scientific papers ever written? (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/06/09/what-are-the-best-scientific-papers-ever-written/) 4 points|reqo|9 months ago|0 comments

Zotero now features retraction notices (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/03/12/zotero-now-features-retraction-notices/) 4 points|Tomte|10 months ago|0 comments

“the income of the average American will double approximately every 39 years”? (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/05/15/the-income-of-the-average-american-will-double-approximately-every-39-years-who-says-that-sort-of-thing-show-some-respect-for-uncertainty-dude/) 3 points|luu|7 months ago|2 comments

Prediction markets and the need for “dumb money” as well as “smart money” (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/10/25/prediction-markets-and-the-need-for-dumb-money-as-well-as-smart-money/) 3 points|nabla9|2 months ago|1 comments

If you want to play tennis at the top level there’s a benefit to being ____ (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/09/06/meritocracy-and-womens-tennis/) 3 points|noelwelsh|4 months ago|1 comments

Why bother engaging outside reviewers at all? (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/12/14/the-most-interesting-part-of-the-story-is-that-the-publisher-went-through-all-these-steps-of-reviewing-and-revising-if-they-just-want-to-make-money-by-publishing-crap-why-bother-engaging-outside-re/) 3 points|Tomte|16 days ago|0 comments

ChatGPT o1-preview can code Stan (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/10/22/chatgpt-o1-preview-can-code-stan/) 3 points|lr0|2 months ago|0 comments

Sean Carroll/Ellen Langer: Credulous, scientist-as-hero reporting (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/10/19/carroll-langer-credulous-scientist-as-hero-reporting-from-a-podcaster-who-should-know-better/) 3 points|nabla9|2 months ago|0 comments

Freakonomics asks, “Why is there so much fraud in academia,” missing one reason (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/09/14/freakonomics-asks-why-is-there-so-much-fraud-in-academia-but-without-addressing-one-big-incentive-for-fraud-which-is-that-if-you-make-grabby-enough-claims-you-can-get-features-in-freako/) 3 points|nabla9|4 months ago|0 comments

Google is violating the First Law of Robotics (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/07/16/google-is-violating-the-first-law-of-robotics/) 3 points|nabla9|6 months ago|0 comments

Best way to understand how a method works? Construct scenarios where it fails (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/05/25/break-it-to-grok-it-the-best-way-to-understand-how-a-method-works-is-go-construct-scenarios-where-it-fails/) 3 points|rossdavidh|7 months ago|0 comments

Infovis, Infographics, and Data Visualization (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/04/18/infovis-infographics-and-data-visualization-my-thoughts-12-years-later/) 3 points|Tomte|9 months ago|0 comments

What is the prevalence of bad social science? (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/04/06/what-is-the-prevalence-of-bad-social-science/) 3 points|Tomte|9 months ago|0 comments

The Contrapositive of “Politics and the English Language.” (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/03/25/the-contrapositive-of-politics-and-the-english-language-one-reason-writing-is-hard/) 3 points|luu|9 months ago|0 comments

The Contrapositive of “Politics and the English Language.” (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/03/25/the-contrapositive-of-politics-and-the-english-language-one-reason-writing-is-hard/) 3 points|Tomte|9 months ago|0 comments

How can a top scientist be so confidently wrong? (2022) (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2022/06/08/how-can-a-top-scientist-be-so-confidently-wrong-r-a-fisher-and-smoking-example/) 3 points|EndXA|10 months ago|0 comments

Michael Lewis (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/02/22/michael-lewis/) 3 points|luu|10 months ago|0 comments

Is Matthew Walker’s “Why We Sleep” Riddled with Scientific/Factual Errors? (2019) (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/11/18/is-matthew-walkers-why-we-sleep-riddled-with-scientific-and-factual-errors/) 3 points|Tomte|10 months ago|0 comments

Clinical trials that are designed to fail (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/02/11/clinical-trials-that-are-designed-to-fail/) 3 points|Tomte|11 months ago|0 comments

Number of inline code comments is zero. Nada. Zilch. Nil. Naught (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/02/07/when-all-else-fails-add-a-code-comment/) 3 points|thaumasiotes|11 months ago|0 comments

The Onion (ok, an Onion-affiliate site) is plagiarizing. For reals (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/01/01/the-onion-ok-an-onion-affiliate-site-is-plagiarizing/) 3 points|Tomte|1 year ago|0 comments

The rise and fall of Seth Roberts and the Shangri-La diet (2023) (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2023/11/20/the-rise-and-fall-of-seth-roberts-and-the-shangri-la-diet/) 2 points|sowbug|1 month ago|1 comments

Prediction markets need dumb money as well as smart money (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/10/25/prediction-markets-and-the-need-for-dumb-money-as-well-as-smart-money/) 2 points|johndcook|2 months ago|1 comments

Whassup with those economists who predicted a recession that then didn’t happen? (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/05/31/whassup-with-those-economists-who-predicted-a-recession-that-then-didnt-happen/) 2 points|_pfco|7 months ago|1 comments

Harvard time baby: completely botched data but you don’t change your conclusions (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/12/12/harvard-lexicon-kerfuffle-is-what-you-call-it-when-you-completely-botched-your-data-but-you-dont-want-to-change-your-conclusions/) 2 points|nabla9|17 days ago|0 comments

What it takes to conclude that a research seam has been mined to exhaustion (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/11/26/i-wonder-just-what-it-takes-to-get-people-to-conclude-that-a-research-seam-has-been-mined-to-the-point-of-exhaustion/) 2 points|domofutu|1 month ago|0 comments

Andrew Gelman is not the science police because there is no science police (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/11/21/andrew-gelman-is-not-the-science-police-because-there-is-no-such-thing-as-the-science-police/) 2 points|Tomte|1 month ago|0 comments

I guess I should be thanking kgwgk, luu, nabla9, Tomte, and the rest of the gang for linking to us! It’s interesting how many of the links come from the same few Hacker News participants.

Also, I don’t know what these “points” represent. 2 points doesn’t sound like a lot, which is kind of a bummer . . . I put so much effort into writing these posts, I’d always appreciate more readers!