Craigslist adult section => less dead hookers?

[Jimmy Higgins]

Steve is just making an observation that I as well made that the conclusion of the study seems to be based solely on fiddling with numbers. There is no raw data they present to help demonstrate their point. In 2006, there was a general decrease in the murder rate in the US after having plateau'd for a number of years. Take a look at this BJS report from 2013 (Report Page 4).

The straight up statistics show a decrease for male (~15%) and female (~11%) within the same period as the cited report for the OP. I'll take straight up stats over ones shoved through a statistical grinder.

It is possible that legalizing such things can lead to lower abuse and murder, I'm not hanging my hat anywhere with that argument. What I'm saying is that the murder rate dropped for male and female within the same range as reported for the report, which implies a generalized reduction in crime.

So, I'm going to go with Ron here and point out that you still have to validate this claim and you have not.

I found the paper to be lacking in evidence suggesting their position that showed the decrease in murders for women was related to Craigslist. Please keep in mind, their claim indicates that murders went down a greater percentage due to Craigslist than actually dropped nationally, indicating murders would have increased in the US for women, despite the decrease for males.

You are potentially one of maybe five people on these whole forums capable of finding a real fault in the study if one exists, and framing the fault in a way others can see it. So either DO that, or quit shitting on the floor.

I'm not squatting anywhere.

I saw the claim, browsed the paper, didn't see anything that seemed to be conclusive. I reflected that the stagnant murder rate shown in their charts was also seen in the US murder rate, and when they show a drop in the murder rate with women, which they attribute to Craigslist list, this drop is seen nationally for men and women, which brings into question, why aren't they discussing that in their paper? They don't explain why the trend they see in their numbers stands out from the trend seen nationally with the simple and unmassaged statistics. They conclude causation, without actually demonstrating it.

In general, crime overall dropped over this entire period. That can't all be attributed to Craigslist. That they don't go into any of this, to explain how Craigslist is in addition to the drop we see seems to indicate the conclusion shouldn't carry much weight.

 

[steve_bank]

Too many variables to draw a conclusions that isolates craigslist as primary cause.

I have a statistics background and have done data correlations. I have experienced finding correlation not being causation more than once. I understand times series and techniques like auto regressive moving averages. ARMA.

There is an old book How To Lie With Statistics. You cab draw most any conclusion you want using statistic's applied to non numerical issues and it not being outright fraud.

And if you want to claim that is at play here, please provide the analysis that would support that skepticism. It's all good and fine to say "data fiddling can happen" and "correlation is not causation" but to actually impugn a piece of data, well, you have to actually impugn the data. So either trust, or verify. You don't get to ethically distrust without verifying.

Aweak reponse.

Explain how you would isolate all social variables that shows cgriglist as a sole or major major influence above all else.
I f I put my mind to it I could correlate anything to the postions of the planets without having to show actual causation.

From one of my doctors drug trials are the same, with small samples and limits on human experiments it is impossible to factor out all variables that may affect the efficacy of a drug.

All those weight loss and exercise machine ads that claim proven fantastic results. Statistical samples are weighted for level of contribution. It is not outright fraud, but depending on the weights you can prove what you want. How many people using a diet or machine would have lost weight anyway? What is the results versu age and sex?

\ valid study on social study as a whole would also include profiles of rapists and sex offenders and links to social media.


Political poll sampling does the same thing, individual samples are given a weight based on demographics as to how it reflects in the general population.

I lusted aspects across social media.