On leading zeros

So I was writing up my referee report and wanted to encourage the author(s) of the paper I was reviewing to use leading zeros. I sought for support from the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition. It said:

8.19 In scientific contexts decimal fractions of less than 1.00 are set with an initial zero if the quantity expressed is capable of equaling or exceeding 1.00.

8.20 If the quantity never exceeds 1.00, as in probabilities, levels of significance, correlation coefficients, factor loadings, and so forth, no zero is used.

where I have omitted the examples the Manual provides.

I had never heard of this surprising distinction before, having erroneously imagined that there were only two views on leading zeros: "yes" and "no". 

I will confess that the Manual's take seems a bit too much  like Fizbin to me, but I am surely a better person for having learned about it.

Oh, and I suggested that the authors of the paper I was reviewing use leading zeros all the time.

Advances in acronymic science: ROPE

 ROPE = Region of Practical Equivalence

This is a very useful term for when two estimates of some population object differ numerically, and maybe even statistically, but do not differ enough substantively for it to matter in a practical sense. Such estimates lie within the ROPE for the problem at hand.

Economics moment of Zen #16

"External validity is the Achilles Hell of all social experimentation."

From a paper that I am reviewing.

Test optional admissions: boon or bane or somewhere in between?

I am inclined to agree with Sarah Turner and her co-author Jordan Arnold who question the conventional wisdom that going test-optional will help disadvantaged college applicants in this piece in Education Next.

From current event you couldn't avoid to forgotten history

 

I post this not because I endorse the t-shirt's empirical claims or its politics. I do not. 

Instead, I post it because of the question it elicited from my 13-year-old: "Who's the third guy?"

Oh do I feel old.

Book: The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante

 Ferrante, Elena. 2006. The Lost Daughter. Europa Editions.

So I bought this book because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about in regard to Elena Ferrante without taking the time to reader her famous trilogy. The Lost Daughter is short but not at all sweet, and sufficed to convince me that, perhaps unusually, Elena lives up to the hype. The book is a hard look at the conflicts that motherhood engenders (cough, cough) in women of independent mind seeking career success along with parental satisfaction. Though blunt, and not at all soft on its protagonist, the book also evinces a respect for the ever-troubled combination of human ambition and human weakness. Plus beautiful writing.

Recommended.

Bonus Atlantic article on the mysterious Elena, who even her translator has never met.

I am pretty sure I purchased this at Kramer Books just off Dupont Circle in DC

Amazon book page

Barnes and Noble book page

The Bubble on SNL

A bit dated now but still pretty funny.