But this is the thing that bothers me - people don't realize that proposing a selection bias is proposing another theory for the results, and that depending on the type of question asked, this theory they're proposing is often extremely unlikely.
Conversation
It's like ppl just register that I'm asking through twitter, know that my twitter account doesn't have a good sampling of the population, and then assume this means that selection bias is a good theory for any sort of twitter poll finding. No! This isn't how it works!
2
64
And I'm NOT saying that my childhood abuse/bdsm poll is conclusive, there's a lot of possible explanations for it and I'd want to replicate this in a better, more careful and detailed survey to check on other causes. But yelling 'selection bias' just makes me wanna punch you
2
60
the way it's delivered to me is often a bad, lazy critique that doesnt understand how bias works or how it impacts things we check for. If you tell me *how* it might be selection bias then im happy to engage: what is your theory for the selection pressures on my respondents?
3
69
If you're like 'hey aella, i think this might be mostly just due to selection bias because you have a high following in this one BDSM recovery from childhood abuse forum that you didn't know about", I'd be like whoah, that's a great point I had no idea
10
2
101
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
Exactly, it's clear the hypothesis being tested in the question. It's very likely that people who match the hypothesis will be motivated to answer.
1
1
Quote Tweet
Yes, true! I also often test this explicitly by asking questions together, and then also separate (at different times) to see if total % clusters are different.
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more

