Shiny app for Spatial Econometric classes

Returning to the "Tobler" shiny app:

The main serious weakness is the name and the approach. It is not and has 
never been the case that "Everything is related to everything else, but near 
things are more related than distant things." This is and has always been an 
oversimplification, disguising the underlying entitation/support problem. Are 
the units of observation appropriate for the scale of the unobserved spatial 
process?

Tobler (1970) https://doi.org/10.2307/143141 was published in the same SI as 
Olsson (1970) https://doi.org/10.2307/143140 (Olsson precedes Tobler), but 
Olsson does grasp the important point that spatial autocorrelation is not 
immanent in spatial phenomena, but often is engendered by inappropriate 
entitation, by omitted variables and/or inappropriate functional form. The 
key quote from Olsson is on p. 228:

"The existence of such autocorrelations makes it tempting to agree with 
Tobler (1970, 236 [my interpolation, the original refers to a conference 
paper]) that 'everything is related to everything else, but near things are 
more related than distant things.' On the other hand, the fact that the 
autocorrelations seem to hide systematic specification errors suggests that 
the elevation of this statement to the status of 'the first law of geography' 
is at best premature. At worst, the statement may represent the spatial 
variant of the post hoc fallacy, which would mean  that coinincidence has 
been mistaken for a causal relation."

The status of the "first law" is very similar to the belief that John Snow 
induced the cause of cholera as water-borne from a map. It may be a good way 
of selling GIS, but it isn't accurate; Snow had a strong working 
microbiological hypothesis prior to visiting Soho, and the map was prepared 
after the Broad street pump was disabled as documentation that the hypothesis 
held (see https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(00)02442-9 Brody et al. 2000).

So the framing of the shiny app is unfortunate, and spatial econometrics is 
not a toolbox, rather a way of loooking at mis-specification when space is 
involved, I think.

Hope this isn't too critical,

Roger

On Thu, 8 Jul 2021, Raphael Saldanha wrote:

 Estimado Spencer,

 Thanks for your kind words. Actually, that construction is not standard in
 Portuguese also (although that does not sound pedant or with some bad
 intention for our ears). I revised the text three times and used an app
 for grammar correction before sending. Anyway, it was a mistake by all
 means.

 To learn Spatial Econometrics and other fields require from us additional
 efforts. There is just a few books or materials in Portuguese. But I try
 to approach this difficult as an opportunity to learn.

 Indeed, one of the reasons for building the app was to facilitate the use
 of the methods for people that are learning R. *Professor Eduardo and I*
 teach annually a course on that field and we face this challenge. With the
 pandemics and Zoom classes, we hope that the app and our scripts will help
 the students to learn R.


 Um forte abra?o,

 Raphael Saldanha

 Em 8 de jul. de 2021, ?(s) 08:45, Spencer Graves
 <spencer.graves at prodsyse.com> escreveu:

 Estimado Raphael:


    I don't know any Portuguese either, and I'm very grateful that you've
    made the effort to ask this group in a language not your own.


    In primary school, I learned that constructions like, "Me and
    Professor ..." too often sounded like, "Mean Professor ...".


    Un fuerte abrazo ("A big hug", as a Uruguayan man whom I had not
    previously met ended a letter inviting me to talk at a conference).


    Spencer Graves


 On 7/8/21 5:32 AM, Raphael Saldanha wrote:

 No offense taken. Thanks for the remark and opportunity to learn.
 Cheers,
 Raphael

 Em 7 de jul. de 2021, ?(s) 23:20, Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz>
 escreveu:

 On Wed, 7 Jul 2021 18:09:50 -0300
 Raphael Saldanha <rfsaldanha at gmail.com> wrote:

 Hello all!

 Me and Professor Eduardo Almeida (UFJF, Brazil) are creating an R
 Shiny app for Spatial Econometric classes.

 <SNIP>

 I hope that you won't find this comment offensive, but I could not
 resist sending it to you, since I am rather fanatical (pedantic?) about
 correct English usage.

 The expression "Me and Professor Eduardo Almeida" is both (a) bad
 grammar and (b) bad form.  (a) Instead of the pronoun "Me" (accusative
 or
 objective case) you should use "I" (nominative or subjective case),
 since
 this expression is the subject of the sentence.  (b) It is "bad form"
 (it sounds vaguely self-promoting)  to put a first person pronoun
 before the
 names of others to which it is linked.  You should say "Professor
 Eduardo Almeida and I are creating ....".

 I realise that English is surely a second language for you, and your
 English is infinitely better than my non-existent Portuguese.  Your
 English is actually quite good, probably better than that of many
 native English speakers.  Nevertheless the expression that you use is
 not correct and you should strive to avoid such usage.

 Again let me express the hope that you won't take offence at this
 comment.

 cheers,

 Rolf Turner

 --
 Honorary Research Fellow
 Department of Statistics
 University of Auckland
 Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276