A brilliant series of posts (Pt1, Pt2, Pt3, Pt4, Pt5, Pt6, Pt7, Pt8) from Mike Flynn on the Galileo controversy, rightly praised by Thony Christie at The Renaissance Mathematicus.
I will be so sorry when this series ends.
Monday 23 September 2013
Fertility Statistics
While we are talking about statistics, what do you suppose is the source for data on women's fertility? Data coming from the last 30 years? 50 years? 100 years?
This BBC Radio 4 radio programme says that the data comes from 1680 - 1810!
It has an interesting discussion about why this is the case but it does make you wonder about the validity of statistics that are generally used in public discourse. There is also a discussion about rape statistics in developing countries and a not-very-convincing defence of the figures by some UN researcher.
This BBC Radio 4 radio programme says that the data comes from 1680 - 1810!
It has an interesting discussion about why this is the case but it does make you wonder about the validity of statistics that are generally used in public discourse. There is also a discussion about rape statistics in developing countries and a not-very-convincing defence of the figures by some UN researcher.
Maths/Stats and Politics
This report came via Mark Guzdial's Computer Science Education blog but is crying out for comment from some statisticians like the Statistician to the Stars, Dr Briggs, or Mike Flynn.
The study, reported in Mother Jones magazine (not exactly the name one would associate with unbiased reporting, I know), purports to show that strong political views affected statistical reasoning ability:
"The study, by Yale law professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues, has an ingenious design. At the outset, 1,111 study participants were asked about their political views and also asked a series of questions designed to gauge their "numeracy," that is, their mathematical reasoning ability. Participants were then asked to solve a fairly difficult problem that involved interpreting the results of a (fake) scientific study. But here was the trick: While the fake study data that they were supposed to assess remained the same, sometimes the study was described as measuring the effectiveness of a "new cream for treating skin rashes." But in other cases, the study was described as involving the effectiveness of "a law banning private citizens from carrying concealed handguns in public."
The result? Survey respondents performed wildly differently on what was in essence the same basic problem, simply depending upon whether they had been told that it involved guns or whether they had been told that it involved a new skin cream. What's more, it turns out that highly numerate liberals and conservatives were even more—not less—susceptible to letting politics skew their reasoning than were those with less mathematical ability."
Who would have thunk it!
The study, reported in Mother Jones magazine (not exactly the name one would associate with unbiased reporting, I know), purports to show that strong political views affected statistical reasoning ability:
"The study, by Yale law professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues, has an ingenious design. At the outset, 1,111 study participants were asked about their political views and also asked a series of questions designed to gauge their "numeracy," that is, their mathematical reasoning ability. Participants were then asked to solve a fairly difficult problem that involved interpreting the results of a (fake) scientific study. But here was the trick: While the fake study data that they were supposed to assess remained the same, sometimes the study was described as measuring the effectiveness of a "new cream for treating skin rashes." But in other cases, the study was described as involving the effectiveness of "a law banning private citizens from carrying concealed handguns in public."
The result? Survey respondents performed wildly differently on what was in essence the same basic problem, simply depending upon whether they had been told that it involved guns or whether they had been told that it involved a new skin cream. What's more, it turns out that highly numerate liberals and conservatives were even more—not less—susceptible to letting politics skew their reasoning than were those with less mathematical ability."
Who would have thunk it!
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