Oh dear. The Chinese translation of Andrew Gelman’s book on hierarchical models and Bayesian analysis has been banned, due to “various politically sensitive materials in the text”. He must be so proud.
I’ll check the text tomorrow to see what might be so sensitive – perhaps they don’t like instrumental variables. But until then feel free to speculate, in an appropriate manner.
(actually, if you want to learn about Bayesian stuff, it’s an excellent text. Although if you get the Chinese edition, you might be hauled off to plant rice for 15 years)
That seems so surprising! O well, I’m sure it’ll be a big hit on their thriving black markets. Other banned things include Facebook and Twitter.
Wow, that is odd. Maybe it’s something to do with its promotion of a natural hierarchy of models, or something?! Although I suspect it may be to do with example datasets chosen. Whatever, I agree it is a very good book, and I’m glad I can have it openly displayed on my shelves!
"Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models" has politically sensitive materials- it would be great if they would give the specific reasons! I guess we may never find out…
@Linda as well as Facebook and Twitter, i also gather that emails are filtered….I could be wrong but i have a couple of friends working in China and sometimes their emails are monitored…it really is "The Great Firewall of China"
Maybe they didn’t know that "hierarchy" could be a non-political word.