Jason Cohen 6/17: How the Wells report made fake statistics look believable

[VectorPrime]

Yep, based on the original BS stats from Mort we would have had to have deflated the footballs to get to that range. But as we later learned by Florio a week later those stats were BS.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

That's not an article that's going to change anyone's mind, particularly not anyone not versed in the manner in which scientists write. It's one of science's biggest problems: they simply do not know how to speak to laymen, and so lose the persuasion battle even when all evidence is on their side.

You're half-right.

They almost always screw themselves by writing badly for laymen. That's why they need "translators" when they "make the jump." Sometimes I've played the role of "translator" for such people.

The other half of the problem is that writing one's results is supposed to be studiously unbiased. These guys take it as a show of bona fides to not trumpet their results, and to understate every conclusion and include any caveats and alternate explanations they can think of.

After all, they have their next paper to think of.

The false bravado and self-centeredness with which our purported "scientists" toss around half-baked pseudo-science on this board is one of the marks of the quack.

That being said, you can maintain the objective tone and skip the fearful caveats; explain the statistical or scientific jargon you must use; avoid jargon where possible; and - horror of horrors - plainly state your hypothesis in the "lead" (or abstract) at the very least. Sometimes this is very possible but is clearly too much for the author(s).

As for the OP... I'm going to go read the link now, which I should have done before. I just caught this post and explained what I've seen in my travels in editorial. Maybe it doesn't show these symptoms. Sounds like it does.

And at the end of the day... I'd be surprised if it's anything other than what we've all been discussing here for months. But hey, he could surprise us

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Actually, this style is very layman-friendly as such things go

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

Jason Cohen‏@jasonicohen
@BenVolin I wrote an article on the statistics in Wells report you might like. I have PhD in Probability & Statistics

Well Ben slept at a Holiday inn Express last night and he still can't understand it...well it's rumored he slept there.

 

[DarrylS]

Add Cohen to the list of "Experts" testifying at the hearing and subsequent court action..

Still wait for the national expose on the NFL and how it does business, an in depth view of the depraved level of operation inside their Madison Avenue fortress... supported and fostered by Roger.

 

[Canuck]

The one thing I learned from reading all the reports is that the Ideal Gas Law has to be applied to each individual football at the time of measurement. If you begin immediate testing after bringing footballs from a cold environment to a warmer one, each football will be at a different temperature when tested. They should have used the back-up balls and waited for the game balls used in the first half to reach temperature equilibrium. Then all the footballs used in the first half should have been measured. Not 11 for the Patriots and 4 for the Colts that was done. The smaller sample size for the Colts would lead to a larger margin of error.

 

[XLIX]

You know, I'm not the tin foil hat type but it certainly seems that ESPN and NFL Network are just ventriloquist dummies for goodell. Bill Simmons was fired by ESPN just for stating the obvious about the performance of the commissioner, a public sports figure it's his job to comment on.

Bill Simmons' final 6 months at ESPN reminded me of that Seinfeld episode where George Constanza was trying to get fired from the Yankees. He did everything short of taking a couple ESPY awards and attaching them to his rear bumper and driving circles around the parking lot.

 

[RayClay]

Bill Simmons' final 6 months at ESPN reminded me of that Seinfeld episode where George Constanza was trying to get fired from the Yankees. He did everything short of taking a couple ESPY awards and attaching them to his rear bumper and driving circles around the parking lot.

Well, this is supposedly what got him booted and i think he was unfair to Brady, if anything. Everything about boodell is pretty much documented fact.

 

[RayClay]

boodell, was a typo, but i like it!

 

[PatsFanInVa]

By the way, every time I read a rebuttal or a critique of the Wells Report, it's been said on this board (whether by laymen or their more learned brethren). This report was bad enough that non-experts could debunk it. I mean, nice to have debunkers who'd be listened to, but, damn.

The frightening part is that the sports media is so much below the level of a bunch of enraged fanboys.

 

[eom]

https://twitter.com/BenNSimmons/status/611182204677410816?lang=en

 

[Deus Irae]

By the way, every time I read a rebuttal or a critique of the Wells Report, it's been said on this board (whether by laymen or their more learned brethren). This report was bad enough that non-experts could debunk it. I mean, nice to have debunkers who'd be listened to, but, damn.

The frightening part is that the sports media is so much below the level of a bunch of enraged fanboys.

I think it was more about piling on and establishing the narrative in order to drive ratings than it was about the sports media being incompetent.

Hell, most of even the Boston media is still calling the Patriots guilty, at one level or another. It's good for their ratings, because it keeps the calls coming and the idiots listening. How many times do we have to hear something like "OK, the Patriots were probably right on the science, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TEXTS!?" before we accept that it's being done on purpose?

 

[ausbacker]

I think it was more about piling on and establishing the narrative in order to drive ratings than it was about the sports media being incompetent.

Hell, most of even the Boston media is still calling the Patriots guilty, at one level or another. It's good for their ratings, because it keeps the calls coming and the idiots listening. How many times do we have to hear something like "OK, the Patriots were probably right on the science, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TEXTS!?" before we accept that it's being done on purpose?

The media is a business. When people accept by and large, they're not as interested in the truth as they are in potential storylines and their economics, you see the media for what it really is.

 

[Gronkowski123]

The NFL and its network"partners" control the media. The public will never know how corrupt the NFL is until either the judicial or legislative branches of government expose it. Not likely since money controls the legislative branch as much as it does the media.

nfl network sucks. they didn't mention warren sapp's arrest. never heard a word about serial rapist darren sharper/barely mentioned killer hernandez

yet they dedicated an entire day to ****ting on tom when the suspension was announced, like he was some criminal. unbelievable. brady should never do another interview for that pathetic network ever again. i know he's pals with eisen/mooch but who gives a ****.
he shouldn't talk to espn either.

 

[VectorPrime]

an entire day? they've been doing it for a month now

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

Correct. As I've written here many times, the NFL does what it wants, when it wants, to whom it wants with absolutely zero regard for or fear of any entity. That office has carte blanche. Laws don't matter, federal law enforcement doesn't matter, FBI, CIA, they fear no one. And history proves they have absolutely no reason to.

From the NFL on down to John Q Average Public - we all fear the IRS.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

The media is a business. When people accept by and large, they're not as interested in the truth as they are in potential storylines and their economics, you see the media for what it really is.

Very well said Aus. The only thing I would change: 'they're not as interested in the truth as they are in potential storylines, their economics and their underlying ideology'.
I bet we could go find stories that would have generated A LOT of viewers/clicks, however, the story has been passed by because it didn't fit what media outlets' management wants to trumpet.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

No matter his personal credentials he is still a no name guy and no one outside our insular fan community will care what he says.

At this point even if, for instance, Peter King does an in depth story about how the Wells Report sucked the big one, do you think that is going to have a tangible effect on the minds of the public (and therefore the autocratic mind of Roger Goodell)? I just don't see that cathartic moment happening even with a national writer. The public has made up its mind. Unless a easy to understand, difficult to refute, something with pictures smoking gun is produced, the public of dummies isn't going to change their mind base on a local or national story about ideal gas law and balls that warmed up for 10 minutes.

IMHO a story like Cohen's is getting done what is practical and achievable. It is adding another iota of weight to the doubt about the Wells Report/Goodell. While the average dummy thinks "Brady is guilty!", every iota of information out in the public domain that refutes this guilt is another small potential opportunity for the average dummy to be corralled into going 'hmmm'. It is another potential opportunity for a monolithic and/or lazy media to go 'hmmm'.
It isn't going to a cathartic moment, it is going to have to be a plodding change.

 

[JarOfMayo51]

F-ing FBI went after FIFA. They are elbows deep in the Cardinals organizations' rectum, yet the NFL goes humming along. Why doesn't someone, maybe an owner who isn't in the "group" take this massive amounts of evidence to the FBI? There is obvious massive impropriety going on here, yet nothing. Wonder why that is.

I think because at the end of the day it's Team Owners vs Team Players

 

[The Brandon Five]

Well, this is supposedly what got him booted and i think he was unfair to Brady, if anything. Everything about boodell is pretty much documented fact.

That is some dumb analysis by Bill. For Pete's sake, there is no evidence that the balls were "warmed" or whatever he was trying to say.