[Phys-l] case study: how to detect bogus data

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

I quote from the summary at
  http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/6/29/15117/8738

> I have just published a report by three statistics wizards showing,
> quite convincingly, that the weekly Research 2000 State of the Nation
> poll we ran the past year and a half was likely bunk.

 ... [a couple of pages] ...

The longer report is at
  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/6/29/880179/-Research-2000:-Problems-in-plain-sight

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I mention it in this forum because we all deal with data for
a living.

Scientific fraud is very rare, but it is also hard to catch.
It is instructive to see what spurious data looks like, and
to see the techniques used to detect it.