If the data that go into the analysis are flawed, the specific technical details of the analysis don’t matter. One can obtain stupid results from bad data without any statistical trickery. And this is often how bullshit arguments are created, deliberately or otherwise. To catch this sort of bullshit, you don’t have to unpack the black box. All you have to do is think carefully about the data that went into the black box and the results that came out. Are the data unbiased, reasonable, and relevant to the problem at hand? Do the results pass basic plausibility checks? Do they support whatever
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