From Nate Silver's "The signal and the noise:"
The amount of information was increasing much more rapidly than our understanding of what to do with it, or our ability to differentiate the useful information from the mistruths.
Why is there a comma before or? Isn't the second clause dependent, since it refers to the increasing amount of information (so it's not self-contained)? If it is indeed independent, how exactly do you tell when a clause is dependent?
Answer
The second clause is neither independent or dependent as there is no verb in the phrase "our ability to differentiate the useful information from the mistruths". This sentence is a compound sentence and is equivalent to writing "I don't like signal, or noise".
I see two possibilities of why there is a comma:
Provide clarity in a long sentence. It helps break up the sentence for easier reading and gives the reader a place to pause for a mental or real breath.
Style choice, either by the author or the editor.
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