I thought I was smarter than a Chimpanzee, but now I'm not so sure! I really enjoyed watching this-- I found the distributions of GDP v. Health to be enlightening.
Pick up any textbook in statistics, and you will soon realize why statistics seem so foreign. It is. The language for many is not only new but mysterious. This is so for several reasons. The language of statistics is: • paradoxically precise yet probabilistic; • slightly askew from everyday usage and downright misleading in some instances; • replete with instances in which the same word takes on substantially different meanings, even in a statistical context; and • chocked full of double negatives (e.g., rejecting the null hypothesis is one of my favorites).
All these characteristics get in the way of understanding and communicating statistics, but they help make a decent wage for the statisticians who invent the jargon, use it, and criticize others’ misuse of it.
It's amazing presentation. Thank you for posting. I really like the idea, "link design to data." Graphs and figures could give us new insights to see the real world, which data themselves cannot provide. Here is a small effort to link design to federal government data.
Robert W. Pearson, Ph.D., is Senior Fellow at the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pearson has previously served as Executive Director of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Associate Dean at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University, Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations at Barnard College, and Program Officer at the Social Science Research Council. He has been on the faculties of Catholic University, Columbia University, and Barnard College. He earned his doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago. Dr. Pearson is the author of a textbook on applied statistics, Statistical Persuasion, published by Sage Publications in January 2010.
I thought I was smarter than a Chimpanzee, but now I'm not so sure! I really enjoyed watching this-- I found the distributions of GDP v. Health to be enlightening.
ReplyDeleteFascinating graphics that tell a compelling story simply yet dramatically. He has other presentations you might check out.
ReplyDeletePick up any textbook in statistics, and you will soon realize why statistics seem so foreign. It is. The language for many is not only new but mysterious. This is so for several reasons. The language of statistics is:
ReplyDelete• paradoxically precise yet probabilistic;
• slightly askew from everyday usage and downright misleading in some instances;
• replete with instances in which the same word takes on substantially different meanings, even in a statistical context; and
• chocked full of double negatives (e.g., rejecting the null hypothesis is one of my favorites).
All these characteristics get in the way of understanding and communicating statistics, but they help make a decent wage for the statisticians who invent the jargon, use it, and criticize others’ misuse of it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing presentation. Thank you for posting. I really like the idea, "link design to data." Graphs and figures could give us new insights to see the real world, which data themselves cannot provide. Here is a small effort to link design to federal government data.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.datamasher.org/