[astanway]

The author calls herself a statistician but has no advanced OR undergraduate degree in statistics. I would not put much faith into this "research". Making conclusions and recommendations at the global and national population level is something I would only trust a proper scientist to do.

[terravion]

Academic credentials do not create truth. If she works at 538 and knowing nothing else about here, I'd wager she is probably better at statistics than most academics, especially those in social sciences who are likely to study this problem. If you actually have a problem with her research, point out the error. Employing an ad hominem like credentialism only makes her findings more credible at first glance.

[dragonwriter]

> If she works at 538 and knowing nothing else about here, I'd wager she is probably better at statistics than most academics, especially those in social sciences who are likely to study this problem.

I wouldn't assume that. It's clear that Nate Silver is excellent at what he does, but that doesn't mean everyobe who has ever been affiliated with 538 in any capacity is an expert at the use of statistics; the employment-based credentialing you propose is at least as invalid as the academic credentialism you criticize.

[JCzynski]

Worked at 538, past tense. Moved on a few months ago, though well after the gun investigation she took the data from. I think she's at [Wave](https://www.wave.com/), now.

[incongruity]

She does have a degree in political science – there definitely are political scientists who get seriously into statistical methods. Moreover, I'd humbly suggest that this topic is dead-on for someone with a political science background. Moreover, given her connection to fivethirtyeight and the fact this work is on fivethirtyeight.com ( https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/ ) which itself has a solid reputation for talking about statistics, I think this work has some credibility, at first blush.