{"id":661969,"date":"2010-02-11T17:36:38","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T22:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/what-scientific-method-39326\/"},"modified":"2010-02-11T17:36:38","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T22:36:38","slug":"what-scientific-method","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/661969","title":{"rendered":"What Scientific Method?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>On 02.11.10 01:00 PM posted by Guinevere Nell<\/p>\n<p>\n&lt;ahref=&quot;http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/100211-obama-economic-team.jpg&quot;&gt;<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/100211-obama-economic-team.jpg?w=780\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/>&lt;\/p&gt;The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) has released &lt;ahref=&quot;http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/administration\/eop\/cea\/economic-report-of-the-President&quot;&gt;a projection of jobs created by the economic stimulus bill. However, the method they used to get these numbers &lt;ahref=&quot;http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/Economy\/wm2799.cfm&quot;&gt;falls short of basic scientific standards. The CEA modeled a potential outcome for the economy without the stimulus, basing it on historical data. They then compared this computer simulation with the actual data about what occurred with the stimulus &#8211; and have declared that the stimulus worked.<\/p>\n<p>This method would be met with a failing grade in any decent university economics course. A projection of a potential economic outcome based on a model must be compared with a baseline scenario produced by that same model. This is basic: the policy simulation must be compared with a baseline. Instead, the White House compared a simulation with empirical data!&lt;spanid=&quot;more-26239&quot;&gt;&lt;\/span&gt;<\/p>\n<p>This is absurd because any slightly different assumption in a simulation will produce a different result. When comparing with a baseline these can be controlled\u0097we can see what assumptions went into the baseline scenario and which went into the simulation of the policy. There are no hidden tricks. But if a simulation is compared to empirical data, we have no way to know why the two differ. It could be anything.<\/p>\n<p>What were the assumptions in this simulation, I wonder? Do they not know that they must use a baseline\u0097or was this a purposeful political maneuver?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/11\/basic-scientific-methods-be-damned\/\" >http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/11\/&#8230;ods-be-damned\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 02.11.10 01:00 PM posted by Guinevere Nell &lt;ahref=&quot;http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/100211-obama-economic-team.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;\/p&gt;The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) has released &lt;ahref=&quot;http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/administration\/eop\/cea\/economic-report-of-the-President&quot;&gt;a projection of jobs created by the economic stimulus bill. However, the method they used to get these numbers &lt;ahref=&quot;http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/Economy\/wm2799.cfm&quot;&gt;falls short of basic scientific standards. The CEA modeled a potential outcome for the economy without the stimulus, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2748,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-661969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2McV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2748"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}