Sebastian Bauhoff

A group at the Indiana School of Informatics has developed a software to detect whether a document is "human written and authentic or not." The idea was inspired by the successful attempt of MIT students in 2004 to place a computer-generated document at a conference (see here). Their program collated random fragments of computer science speak into a short paper that was accepted at a major...

You, Jong-Sung

There was a big scandal in scientific research recently. Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, Seoul National University in Korea, announced last June that he and his team had cloned human embryonic stem cells from 11 patients. It was a remarkable breakthrough in stem cell research and many people expected that he would eventually get a Nobel Prize. Hwang's team, however, was found to have intentionally fabricated key data in two landmark papers on human embryonic stem cells, according to a Seoul National University panel. Now, the prosecution is probing into his...

Jim Greiner

I’ve blogged previously about the course in statistics and law I’m co-teaching this semester (see, for example, here). The course is now in its second simulation, which deals with employment discrimination. In a recent class, the 80% rule came up. I wish it hadn’t. In fact, I wish the ``rule�? had never seen the light of day. In this post, I’ll explain what the 80% rule is. In a subsequent post, I’ll explain why it stinks.

Suppose we’re interested in...

Jens Hainmueller and Michael Hiscox

We have written a paper that investigates individual attitudes toward immigration in 22 European countries. In line with our research on individual attitudes toward trade policies (see previous blog entries here, here, and ...