Friday 29 June 2012

Sense about statistics

An opportunity to look at every tabloid quoted 'statistic' with improved insight - read this from the 'Sense about Science' web-site. It addresses such pertinent question "What is the average? and which one should I use?", "what is the range and are you just quoting the extreme (and unlikely values)?" and points out that big and small numbers have to be put in the correct context.
It includes input from Professor David Spiegelhalter (whose excellent blog Underrstanding Uncertainty is here) on the subject of uncertainty and confidence intervals (i.e. how sure are we?).
People who hate speed-cameras will enjoy them being used as an example of what is know as "Regression to the mean" and attribution of camera placement to accident rate reduction (i.e. this is not necessarily true - hello uncertainty).
A section about absolute and relative risk deals with the "Bacon Butties cause cancer" type of story.

A recommended read that, despite containing the work 'statistics' in it's title, is clear, readable and understandable....


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