dbabbitt OP t1_iuhhdfi wrote on October 31, 2022 at 11:24 AM

Reply to comment by notger in [OC] Female School Enrollment vs. Fertility by dbabbitt

"Outside of... lin-e-ar systems, line fits are bad."

notger t1_iuhig7e wrote on October 31, 2022 at 11:36 AM

Haha, okay, caught me off guard.

On a more serious note: Fitting a hyperbole or exponential curve with negative exponent might work better here. Or f = exp(-a*x) + C even.

Though tbh, I wouldn't even put a curve in there, as the samples are so vastly different, that I would leave it to the reader's eye to make a conclusion. Which is something where any type of fit is hindering, as it is already (prematurely) suggesting a conclusion.

[deleted] t1_iuhm43o wrote on October 31, 2022 at 12:14 PM

[deleted]

notger t1_iuipbo3 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 5:03 PM

Yep, but by now I am quite settled on "no fit at all is the best fit here".

In the end, fits often are used to simplify things so that they can be used in simplified thinking or modeling. Which always breaks down in complex, non-linear cases like this is one.

dbabbitt OP t1_iuhk1ik wrote on October 31, 2022 at 11:53 AM

Yeah, but what about the confidence intervals? You don't get an R-squared like that very often in the social sciences. It was irresistible!

notger t1_iuhkmpp wrote on October 31, 2022 at 11:59 AM

I get that, but is that the way of the Jedi, or did you give in to the dark side?

The fact that something gave you a good metric while very obviously being wrong tells us how useless that metric actually is.

At least you pointed out the most evil country, so overall, the graph is very useful.