leftfielder.org

Well, New Jersey is abolishing the death penalty.  If pressed, I would probably come down on the side of keeping the death penalty.  I don’t particularly like the death penalty, but I like having flexibility in the legal system.   In my ideal world I’d like to have the legal option of using the death penalty and then never actually apply it. 

Really though, I don’t have a strong opinion either way on this one.  I’m not convinced deterrence works, but I’m not convinced it doesn’t.  I think having the option of the death penalty helps DAs get plea bargains and thus reduces the costs and demands on the legal system, which is a plus. But I recognize it may also lead to more false confessions and that is a minus.  So, lacking a strong opinion either way, I tend to play devil’s advocate in death penalty debates. Continue reading »

I’ve lost count of how many of these correlation vs. causation posts I’ve done.  Either the media isn’t reading my posts, or else they keep forgetting what I’ve said…

This time the culprit is a recent set of studies that students who don’t pull all nighters get better grades than those who do.   The study goes on to conclude that students shouldn’t pull all nighters.  Now, I’m sure all-nighters are bad for other reasons.  They make you cranky, they may have health consequences, and they are generally bad news.  But just because there’s a correlation between all-nighters and lower GPAs does not mean that you can pull up your GPA by not pulling all-nighters.

Here’s an obvious alternate causal story.  Folks who are organized get their work done early – so they both don’t have to rush their work (leading to higher quality work, and higher grades) and they don’t pull all-nighters.  Or perhaps people from certain cultures have better study skills, and have cultural prohibitions against all-nighters… i.e. a third variable causes both.

There are other things that lower GPAs – such as not turning in papers on time, and not having studied at all.  If the night before a test or due date a student isn’t ready, an all -nighter might still be better than the alternative – not being ready at all.

When I was in college, I never pulled an all-nighter.  And I am in no way endorsing the practice.  But I take umbrage at the implied causation from a correlational study.  Shame on the media – shame!