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In reply to the discussion: California Mathematicians Develop Equation to Prevent Shootings [View all]eomer
(3,845 posts)So they made a mathematical model based on reasoning out how they thought certain forces would influence the result of gun deaths. Then they went out and found a very small sample of data that fits the model. But they don't provide sufficient explanation of how they chose that small sample from among the data universe. While they discuss the need to control for a few factors like socio-economic conditions, they don't disclose any actual methodology for this control or any convincing case that there aren't other factors that would need to be controlled for, so a skeptic would conclude that they likely chose that sample because it fit the model and excluded others merely because they didn't fit the model.
And even so, that sample only provides a couple of points that fit the model somewhere in the middle range of the function. Two points does not, of course, validate the shape of the curve and especially doesn't validate that the extreme ends are a good fit.
Even while they are stating (premature) conclusions from their approach, there is a between-the-lines admission in the study that they really haven't shown much of anything but rather have suggested an approach that might, in the future, show something - a prospect of which I'm skeptical.