
	Where results make sense

Topic: Ecological fallacy

Related Topics

Misuse of statistics

Statistical special pleading

Jenner Township, Pennsylvania

Welton by Lincoln

Chevreul

Statistical survey

Digital audio broadcasting

James Edward Quigley

Hail to the Redskins

May sur Orne

Wha Ti, Northwest Territories

Southern Baptist Convention

Ricardo Elizondo Elizondo

Yakov Peters

Course of Pure Mathematics

In the News (Fri 9 Jan 09)

Brad Pitt

Jennifer Garner

Boston College

Steve Ballmer

Rod Blagojevich

Phil Schiller

Gaza City

Jermain Defoe

Lindsay Lohan

Bill Richardson

	Ecological fallacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The ecological fallacy is a widely recognised error in the interpretation of statistical data, whereby inferences about the nature of individuals are based solely upon aggregate statistics collected for the group to which those individuals belong.
		The ecological fallacy was a factor in the judge's decision to uphold the election of Christine Gregoire in the court challenge to the Washington gubernatorial election, 2004.
		The ecological fallacy is exceptionally common in population research.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ecological_fallacy (580 words)

	Re: Ecological Fallacy? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		Scott: Among epidemiologists, it has been the practice to designate as an "ecological" study a study of a population for which the exposure estimation is based on such variables as area of residence, and usually time is also part of the exposure matrix.
		What is considered to be a fallacy is to asssume that all persons in such an area or population are having the same exposure, and therefore than any disease difference by area is due to such exposures.
		Ecological studies in this sense are relatively frequent because of their low cost...they avoid study of how the exposure varies across various population attributes, for example, and usually involve no new measurements.
	www.vanderbilt.edu /radsafe/9802/msg00545.html (257 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		The Ecological Fallacy 1 August 2002 by David A. Freedman Department of Statistics University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 In 19th century Europe, suicide rates were higher in countries that were more heavily Protestant, the inference being that suicide was promoted by the social conditions of Protestantism (Durkheim, 1897).
		The "ecological fallacy" consists in thinking that relationships observed for groups necessarily hold for individuals: if countries with more Protestants tend to have higher suicide rates, then Protestants must be more likely to commit suicide.
		Ecological studies can provide useful clues, but conclusions about individuals are in general only weakly supported by data on groups.
	www.stat.berkeley.edu /~census/ecofall.txt (512 words)

	On Teaching Ecological Fallacy
		Writers on Ecology all too often treat plants and animals as part of the environment, the passive recipients of whatever mankind happen to inflict on them: as part of the scenery of the theatre, rather than actors in the play.
		I have seen, as a punch line, the claim that 'Nepal loses 6 billion tons of topsoil a year' - no suggestion of how this figure was arrived at, nor of whether this is a large or a small quantity.
		But the British Ecological Society should ask itself whether it is doing enough to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the coming of the National Curriculum.
	www.hamar.fsnet.co.uk /teg/7/Falacy.html (1598 words)

	Ecological fallacy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		The Ecological Fallacy is a situation that can occur when a researcher or analyst makes an inference about an individual based on aggregate data for a group.
		For example, a researcher might examine the aggregate data on income for a neighbourhood of a city, and discoverer that the average household income for the residents of that area is $30,000.
		The ecological fallacy can occur when the researcher then states, based on this data, that people living in the area earn about $30,000.
	www.jratcliffe.net /research/ecolfallacy.htm (310 words)

	?Ecological Fallacy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		Daniel Strom, Ph.D., states that Cohen's work is subject to the "ecologic fallacy", because it meets this definition, which he quotes: >The ecologic fallacy is "An error in interpreting associations >between ecologic indices.
		I suppose another example of the ecologic fallacy is the relation between iodine and goiter.
		We all know that living in an area with a lack of iodine in soil (majority of a group has this characteristic) causes an greater incidence of goiter (a health state common to the group).
	www.vanderbilt.edu /radsafe/9508/msg00381.html (136 words)

	[No title]
		The fallacy sometimes present when drawing inferences regarding variability across groups (or the relation between group level variables) based on individual level data, or more generally, the fallacy of drawing inferences regarding variability across units defined at a higher level based on data collected for units at a lower level.
		The ecological fallacy arises because associations between two variables at the group level (or ecological level) may differ from associations between analogous variables measured at the individual level.
		If he/she infers that at the individual level, increasing personal income is associated with increasing motor vehicle related mortality, she may be committing the ecological fallacy, because within countries, motor vehicle related mortality may always be lower in high income than in low income persons.
	www.paho.org /English/DD/AIS/be_v24n3-multilevel.htm (1328 words)

	PM2.5 and Mortality in Long-term Prospective Cohort Studies: Cause-Effect or Statistical Associations? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		Ecologic studies are generally considered inferior to individual-level studies because 1) they are subject to biases not present in individual-level studies; 2) the biases in ecologic studies are less well understood; and 3) the effect of biases on risk estimates is unpredictable in ecologic studies.
		Ecologic studies are subject to similar biases and, in general, lack the rigor to test the hypothesis.
		An increased level of proof is required because ecologic studies are subject to the ecologic fallacy, and the smoking analogy indicates large overestimates of risk.
	ehp.niehs.nih.gov /members/1998/106p535-549gamble/gamble-full.html (11329 words)

	[No title]
		Aggregation, Multilevel Data Title: Ecological inference and the ecological fallacy Author: David A. Freedman Date: March 1999 Pub: PDF Url: http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~census/549.pdf Abstract: This paper reviews several methods for making ecological inferences, that is, inferring the behavior of individuals from aggregate data.
		Also considered is the ecological fallacy, which is the idea that relationships observed for groups necessarily hold for individuals.
		Ecological regression makes estimates that are similar to King's, while the neighborhood model is much more accurate.
	www.stanford.edu /class/ed260/freedmanabs.txt (1589 words)

	fallacy on Encyclopedia.com
		FALLACY [fallacy] in logic, a term used to characterize an invalid argument.
		Informal fallacies are said to occur when statements are ambiguous or vague as to the logical form they represent, or when a multiplicity of meaning is present and the validity of the argument depends on switching meanings of a word or a phrase in midstream.
		Analysis: Tthe Keynesian Bureaucrat Fallacy, (EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of a two-part series of analyses dealing with the spring convention of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.).
	www.encyclopedia.com /html/f1/fallacy.asp (387 words)

	The Semi-individual Study in Air Pollution Epidemiology: A Valid Design as Compared to Ecologic Studies (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		The ecologic fallacy is defined as a type--or rather a family--of biases, i.e., aggregation bias or ecologic bias, to which the ecologic study is considered to be uniquely prone.
		Although several important ecological studies have been carried out to evaluate the health effects of long-term exposure to ambient air pollutants, the bulk of more recent studies involves cross-sectional studies in which health and functional outcomes in individuals are compared across regions, with the same exposure being assigned to all individuals within a region.
		In this example, the ecologic fallacy applies if we were to use the ecologic risk estimates of smoking on lung cancer as the risk in individuals.
	ehp.niehs.nih.gov /members/1997/105-10/kunzli-full.html (5641 words)

	[No title]
		The central point of the Ecological Fallacy thesis is that strong aggregate-level relationships are not necessarily reproduced at the individual level.
		This is the type of cross-level fallacy to which Seligson inadvertently falls victim, arguing that the societal-level correlation between democracy and political culture is spurious unless it is reflected in individual-level correlations between these political culture indicators and support for democracy.
		The ecological fallacy (and the individualistic fallacy) are based on unwarranted assumptions that a phenomenon that exists at one level, also exists at another level.
	www.worldvaluessurvey.org /Upload/2_EcolFAlla.doc (5812 words)

	Migration, mobility and the exposure fallacy: an issue for New Zealand
		Unfortunately, the issue of population mobility and migration, the essence of the exposure fallacy, is seldom addressed.
		Although some elements of the exposure fallacy are occasionally acknowledged,4,5 such concerns are generally ignored and few authors make any significant attempts to incorporate population mobility into their health/disease models (there are exceptions6,7).
		The exposure fallacy is the unfounded assumption that population mobility occurs at a low and consistent level across areas, and that the populations involved are uniformly similar.
	www.nzma.org.nz /journal/116-1180/572 (673 words)

	PSCI 5108
		Robinson (1950) "Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals." ASR 15: 351-357.
		Goodman (1953) "Ecological Regression and the Behavior of Individuals." ASR 18: 663-664.
		Erbring (1989) "Individuals Writ Large: An Epilogue on the 'Ecological Fallacy'." PA 1: 235-269.
	sobek.colorado.edu /~mciverj/ei_syl.html (372 words)

	lit review2
		The MAUP consists of both a scale and an aggregation problem, and the concept of the ecological fallacy should also be considered (Bailey and Gatrell, 1995).
		The ecological fallacy occurs when the researcher states, based on this data, that people living in that census tract earn about $40,000.
		This does not mean that identifying associations between aggregate figures is necessarily flawed, and it does not necessarily mean that any inferences drawn about associations between the characteristics of an aggregate population and the characteristics of sub-units within the population are absolutely wrong either.
	www.sfu.ca /geog/geog355fall03/gdumedah/lit_review2.html (579 words)

	Title: Deprivation, ill-health and the ecological fallacy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		The use of ecological studies in explaining the relationship between deprivation and ill-health is widespread in many health applications.
		However, inferences drawn from these studies about individuals are susceptible to serious bias known as the ecological fallacy.
		It is shown that the ecological fallacy effect can be considerably reduced by taking into account different population structures at the aggregate level.
	www.prw.le.ac.uk /epidemio/personal/nas11/Lancaster.html (102 words)

	logistic regression analysis with aggregate data - tackiling the ecological fallacy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		When the groups are geographical areas and the results of the analysis of aggreagte data are assumed to reflect individual level relationships these differences are examples of the ecological fallacy.
		The ecological fallacy is caused by several factors, including the non-random composition of the groups and the correlations between individuals within the same group.
		Using a model which incorporates auxiliary or grouping variables that reflect the composition of the groups, methods are developed for estimating logistic regression models using aggregate data and a limited amount of individual level data on the grouping variables.
	www.ccsr.ac.uk /staff/Marktranmer/asaabs.html (170 words)

	LIS 504 - Fallacies (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		The ecological fallacy is an error in deduction; it involves making conclusions about individuals based only on analyses of group data.
		The exception fallacy is an error in induction; it involves making a conclusion about a group on the basis of exceptional cases.
		If a researcher selects items with extreme scores at one point in time and then looks at the scores of the same, or related, items at another point in time, we can expect that the second set of scores will average closer to the mean value for the population as a whole.
	instruct.uwo.ca /fim-lis/504/504fal.htm (453 words)

	The fallacy of the ecological fallacy: the potential misuse of a concept and the consequences -- Schwartz 84 (5): 819 ...
		The fallacy of the ecological fallacy: the potential misuse of a concept and the consequences -- Schwartz 84 (5): 819 -- American Journal of Public Health
		The fallacy of the ecological fallacy: the potential misuse of a concept and the consequences
		of the "ecological fallacy." Although the empirical evidence for a lack of
	www.ajph.org /cgi/content/abstract/84/5/819 (931 words)

	UBC Statistics Department: BRG: Seminar Abstract (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		Diverse, and often contradictory, estimates of needs are possible depending on the chosen methodological approaches and also on the level of aggregation of the data being used.
		We derive empirical and theoretical conditions under which ecological level analysis can be an efficient alternative to individual level analysis without unduly worrying about creating ecological fallacy.
		It will be demonstrated that, with careful consideration in aggregation of the data to satisfy the thoretical conditions, analyses based on aggregate data can be free of ecological fallacy.
	www.stat.ubc.ca /biostat/seminars/9899.archive/021899.html (172 words)

	Geographies of bias and exclusion in a lifestyle databases (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		To infer the characteristics of the individuals from the characteristics of their 'neighbourhood' is to risk invoking the ecological fallacy.
		The stick, then, is the 'ecological fallacy': it is inherently problematic to ascribe characteristics and relationships which dominate at one level of aggregation to a different level - here, from areas to individuals.
		It is partly from an awareness of the ecological fallacy and of the indirect variables used by geodemographics to analyse consumer behaviours that led to the appearance of lifestyle database companies, in Britain from the mid-to-late 1980s.
	www.geocomputation.org /1998/82/gc_82.htm (3231 words)

	Two Research Fallacies (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		An exception fallacy is sort of the reverse of the ecological fallacy.
		This is the kind of fallacious reasoning that is at the core of a lot of sexism and racism.
		Both of these fallacies point to some of the traps that exist in both research and everyday reasoning.
	www.socialresearchmethods.net /kb/fallacy.htm (321 words)

	NetShrine Discussion Forum - OPS and the Ecological Fallacy
		If that is the logic, it is a clear case of the Ecological Fallacy, which "consists in thinking that relationships observed for groups necessarily hold for individuals" (see http://www.stanford.edu/class/ed260/freedman549.pdf for a longer explanation of the Ecological Fallacy).
		We already recognize the Ecological Fallacy for stats such as RBIs and Rs, both of which correlate very highly with runs on a team level, but not nec.
		The old one was easy, but suffered seriously from the Ecological Fallacy, as calexpat would put it.
	www.netshrine.com /vbulletin2/showthread.php?t=4489 (1830 words)

	Mahalanobis
		According to Carroll (1975), death rates from breast cancer are higher in countries where fat is a larger component of the diet, the idea being that fat intake causes breast cancer.
		These are ‘ecological inferences,’ that is, inferences about individual behavior drawn from data about aggregates.
		But the second problem—that exposure and response are measured only for aggregates rather than for individuals—is specific to ecological studies.
	mahalanobis.twoday.net /stories/478657 (301 words)

	Public Health SciencesContinuing Education (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		The ecological fallacy is the bias which may occur when an association observed between variables at the group level differs from the association at the individual level.
		Problems posed by the ecological fallacy are not unique to ecological studies but rather may occur whenever data can be collected and analyzed at more than one level.
		The purpose of this workshop is to introduce the key features of multilevel modelling building on the more familiar challenges posed by ecological studies and arguing that consideration for the level of inference can inform analyses and clarify interpretation of observed associations.
	www.phs.utoronto.ca /PHSdayContEd2003_details.asp (228 words)

	[No title]
		The NAS report states: ``The ecologic study of Cohen (1995) is the most comprehensive.
		As is usual, Cohen's data are not refuted but rather brushed off with a glib reference to the Ecological Fallacy: ``the ecological studies are ambiguous because no attempt is made to determine actual exposure to individuals in the area of study and no correction is made for smoking, the strongest confounder for lung cancer.''
		The ``ecological fallacy'' is relevant to finding the dose-effect relationship because the confounding factors must be quantitatively well known.
	www.oism.org /cdp/jan2000.htm (1815 words)

	Ecological perspectives in health research -- McLaren and Hawe 59 (1): 6 -- Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
		The heart of ecological thinking is the natural ecosystem.
		ecological fallacy, it should be noted that ecological refers
		to the ecological perspective is the assumption of
	jech.bmjjournals.com /cgi/content/full/59/1/6 (2204 words)

	poor people eat better food
		The ecological fallacy is an example of the effect of spurious correlation.
		It is called "ecological" not because it has anything to do with ecology or the environment but because it has to do with analyzing data areas or groups or aggregates.
		Typically, what happens is that aggregates of data (like counties) will show some relationship between the average value of one variable and the average value of another; however, at the same time, the relationship between the individual values of those variables may be quite different.
	www.autobox.com /ecol.html (402 words)

	The ecological fallacy strikes back -- PEARCE 54 (5): 326 -- Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
		Thus, ecological studies were not a good thing to do, and were a relic of the "pre-modern" phase of epidemiology before it
		avoiding both the ecological fallacy and the individualistic fallacy.
		Susser M. The logic in ecological: I. The logic of analysis.
	jech.bmjjournals.com /cgi/content/full/54/5/326 (1906 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)