An oldie, but goodie.

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/05/missing-pieces.html

https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2016/03/10/does-your-vote-affect-public-policy/

Over at Montclair Socioblog, Jay Livingston discusses a recent study showing that some Americans don’t think that their votes make any difference in how they’re governed. Those of us who care about politics often respond to this kind of pessimism with the old adage that every vote counts, but are they wrong?

Livingston suggests that they’re not.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/03/08/science-is-not-faith-based-no-matter-what-the-wall-street-journal-says/#42d8e2506055

Faith, by definition, is the belief in something despite insufficient knowledge to be certain of its veracity. Some beliefs require small leaps of faith (the example that the Sun will rise tomorrow), as the body of evidence supporting that prediction is overwhelming, while others – the existence of dark matter, the inflationary origin of our Universe, or the possibility of room-temperature superconductivity — may still be likely, but may also reasonably turn out to be wrongheaded. Yet in every case, there are two key components that make the prediction scientific:

1. The prediction, or the belief that the outcome can be accurately predicted, is predicated on the existence of quality evidence.

2. As the evidence changes — as we obtain more, newer and better evidence — and as the full suite of evidence expands, our predictions, postdictions and entire conceptions of the Universe change along with it.
There is no such thing as a good scientist who isn’t willing to both base their scientific belief on the full suite o

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/statisticians-found-one-thing-they-can-agree-on-its-time-to-stop-misusing-p-values/

A common misconception among nonstatisticians is that p-values can tell you the probability that a result occurred by chance. This interpretation is dead wrong, but you see it againand again and again and again. The p-value only tells you something about the probability of seeing your results given a particular hypothetical explanation — it cannot tell you the probability that the results are true or whether they’re due to random chance.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00031305.2016.1154108

Cobb’s concern was a long-worrisome circularity in the sociology of science based on the use of bright lines such as P < 0.05 : “We teach it because it’s what we do; we do it because it’s what we teach.” This concern was brought to the attention of the ASA Board.

This is an oldie-but-goodie… but needs a re-posting sometimes…

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon

https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2016/03/03/find-replace-bureaucracy-with-blockchain/

"To drive this point home I have pulled a few excerpts from Max Weber’s writing on bureaucracy but I have replaced a few nouns (in bold) so that his references to human organizations are replaced by algorithms, blockchains, and other technologies. With just these few noun changes a 19th century German sociologist of modern statecraft turns into the next great TED talk…"

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/24/for-2020-census-bureau-plans-to-trade-paper-responses-for-digital-ones/

The 2020 census could be the first in which most Americans are counted over the internet. In fact, if all goes as planned, the Census Bureau won’t even send paper questionnaires to most households.

http://www.straighterline.com/blog/seven-habits-of-great-online-college-students/

What skills do great distance learners have? Just like classroom students, they are motivated and curious. Yet they need some additional traits too, because computer courses pose certain unique demands.

http://www.epi.org/publication/white-workers-have-nearly-five-times-as-much-wealth-in-retirement-accounts-as-black-workers/

"However, as private-sector employers largely replaced defined-benefit pensions with defined-contribution plans, black workers fell behind their white counterparts. By 2014, only 47 percent of black workers had a retirement plan at work, versus 53 percent of their white counterparts. Black workers are both less likely to be offered a retirement plan and to opt into a voluntary plan—though whether or not they are offered a plan in the first place is the larger factor."