This one could be a WitCH or a PoSWW, except we’re withholding some information. So, consider it an analysis puzzle.
The following was posted to an Australia-NZ statistics list. The email was from an American statistician, referring to and quoting from this article (Update: link fixed), on a Texas hospital adopting critical care guidelines. See if you can identify the problem.
UPDATE (30/7)
A weird hint: we are not playing fair. (And, boy are people gonna be pissed.)
As we wrote in reply to a comment “There is the post, and the links to which the post refers. You can consider what ever issues you see.” So maybe list quickly, without elaboration, anything you see as an issue.
UPDATE (31/7)
OK, time to end this, and so a final hint. As indicated in the comments, the “problem” is with the poster’s line “Statistics is a bitch”. We’re very, very pleased that no one has hit upon the “problem” with this line.
FINAL UPDATE (01/08)
Well, wasn’t that fun? Thanks to everyone for playing along.
As indicated above, the “problem” is with the line “Statistics is a bitch”. And what’s wrong with that line? Not a whole lot. It’s not a great line, since it can be read as treating the “statistics” as a from-nowhere reality, rather than the disastrous consequences of Republican screw-up. But no big deal.
So, why post on this as a problem? Because the stats email list to which the comment was posted thought it was a problem. A number of commenters took very serious issue with the poster’s use of the word “bitch”.
This began with an off-post email to the poster, indicating “the language used is not at all appropriate for [such] an email list” and a request: “I’d appreciate it if you could apologise for this choice of words.” (To whom?) The poster replied to the email list, with a long and unhelpful, but fundamentally reasonable, non-apology apology. In brief, the poster, who is in Texas, suggested that they had much, much bigger things to worry about. And then the bashing kicked in.
There were calls for the poster to “grow up”, to “stop using hurtful, offensive language”, suggestions that “the problem is the use of a term that is all too often directed at women in a derogatory way” (ignoring that this was not the case here), whining about “gendered name-calling”, and all manner of nitpicky and gratuitous complaint.
It was crazy and it was revolting, and all of it coming from proud and proper academics. Eventually there was some tepid defence of the poster, but way too little and way too late. No one stood up properly to these ridiculous, self-important language nazis.
Which is why we posted about it here. Of course this is the type of blog where those offended by strong language are unlikely to hang around. And, maybe some shyer types here agree with the poster’s critics. But, it was still very, very pleasing that no one who engaged here had a clue what we could have been on about.