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Comment by Brushfire | Hacker News Reader

This list is somewhat dated. After looking through the editor's top 100, many of these are indeed very good. However, a cursory glance through the 'Readers' list reveals some strange/unexpected list members, that might suggest strange/skewed sample population.

Things that immediately stood out as different:

- 3 Rand books in the top 6? Really?

- 2 Scientology / Anti Psychology books near the top (#2, #11)

A look at the fiction list reveals the same bias:

Top 10 from the 'Novels List'

  ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
  THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
  BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
  THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
  TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
  1984 by George Orwell
  ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
  WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
  MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
  FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard

There are still gems in these lists, I'm just surprised that many of these made the list, especially some of the high ranking ones. Something seems off.

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However, a cursory glance through the 'Readers' list reveals some strange/unexpected list members, that might suggest strange/skewed sample population.

Yes, the reader-nominated list illustrates the systematic defect of voluntary response polls. One professor of statistics, who is a co-author of a highly regarded AP statistics textbook, has tried to popularize the phrase that "voluntary response data are worthless" to go along with the phrase "correlation does not imply causation." Other statistics teachers are gradually picking up this phrase.

"From: Paul Velleman [SMTPfv2@cornell.edu] Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 1998 5:10 PM To: apstat-l@etc.bc.ca; Kim Robinson Cc: mmbalach@mtu.edu Subject: Re: qualtiative study

"Sorry Kim, but it just aint so. Voluntary response data are worthless. One excellent example is the books by Shere Hite. She collected many responses from biased lists with voluntary response and drew conclusions that are roundly contradicted by all responsible studies. She claimed to be doing only qualitative work, but what she got was just plain garbage. Another famous example is the Literary Digest 'poll.' All you learn from voluntary response is what is said by those who choose to respond. Unless the respondents are a substantially large fraction of the population, they are very likely to be a biased -- possibly a very biased -- subset. Anecdotes tell you nothing at all about the state of the world. They can't be "used only as a description" because they describe nothing but themselves."

http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=194473&tsta...

I'm thinking someone might have gamed the system. Not sure who is eligible to vote, but an organization might be able to encourage it's members to participate in the poll?

7 top 10's shared between Ayn Rand and Hubbard, there's no question if someone gamed the system it's guaranteed.

The readers version of the non-fiction list is so bizarre it obviously isn't a random poll. Like 80% of the list are political and exceptionally odd choices too.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm not from the US, but I've never heard of most of the books on the list and I'm well red. The books I have heard of are the political ones, most of which people I know would never dream of touching. I just have serious disbelief that so many Americans would read books from Rand and Hubble, yet in the fiction list there's like two mentions of genuinely famous writers.

The Radcliffe's Rival 100 is what I expect to see from a public list where Rand's publications are somewhere in the list, not clustered at the top. I mean why are all the classics like in Radcliffe's list missing from the public list when these are books everybody has read. I read a lot of these books in school, and I know lots of them are taught in american schools so why aren't they on the list?

I mean for fucks sakes, honestly why isn't there a book like Winne-the-Pooh in the public list?

"vote early, vote often"

Yup, it does indeed look like a vocal minority may have skewed the outcome a little there...

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