{"id":2166,"date":"2002-02-26T13:53:36","date_gmt":"2002-02-26T18:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=2166"},"modified":"2002-02-26T13:53:36","modified_gmt":"2002-02-26T18:53:36","slug":"doing_the_math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/02\/26\/doing_the_math.html","title":{"rendered":"Doing the math"},"content":{"rendered":"

My sainted wife, Margie, is a biostatistician. That’s good, because while I have always admired the statistical arts, I’m darned bad at them, and Margie’s good at pointing out where statistics are used in a bad and\/or misleading way.<\/p>\n

So are the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS<\/a>) folks. They give out the “Dubious Data” awards <\/a>annually to “journalists who mangled statistics and subverted science in the way they reported stories.”<\/p>\n

The focus for 2001 was the media’s literal feeding frenzy over a set of shark attacks along the Atlantic coast. <\/p>\n

The frenzy was extraordinary. According to a NEXIS search, there were a mere 58 stories about shark attacks in the U.S. print media in June. This increased tenfold in July to 592, and it rose again in August to 684. September was the month the story would have consumed all others, with 624 entries up to and including September 11. The advent of another dangerous but unseen villain stopped all that.
\n[…] What happened to produce all this attention? An eight year-old boy in Florida had his arm ripped off by a shark in July. Then two people were killed in North Carolina and Virginia within a few days. The last time two people had been killed by sharks in one year was in 1994. So 2001 seemed unusual, with two fatalities close together, and Virginia had never seen a shark attack fatality, while North Carolina had not seen one since 1957.<\/p>\n

Of course, this was just a statistical blip, easy with such small numbers, but the media attention drew pundits who saw sinister patterns with no basis in fact, blaming everything from global warming to Bill Clinton’s fisheries policy.<\/p>\n

And the final, crowning glory? There were, by the end fo the year, only 76 attacks and five fatalities in 2001 — down <\/i>from 85 and 12 in 2000. <\/p>\n

Good article. More people should read it than are likely to.<\/p>\n

(Via InstaPundit<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My sainted wife, Margie, is a biostatistician. That’s good, because while I have always admired the statistical arts, I’m darned bad at them, and Margie’s good at pointing out where…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-estate"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":136210,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/04\/assault-and-statistical-battery.html","url_meta":{"origin":2166,"position":0},"title":"Assault and Statistical Battery","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 4-May-18 7:18am","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently it's easy to show a surge of \"assaults\" against Border Patrol agents when you change how you count assaults to a method that nobody else uses but that gives you much, much higher numbers. How the Border Patrol Faked Statistics Showing a 73 Percent Rise in Assaults Against Agents\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/border-patrol.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3125,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/08\/06\/all_the_news.html","url_meta":{"origin":2166,"position":1},"title":"All the News …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Aug-02 6:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Two observations on news and the national consciousness (and conscience). First, there's been a huge amount of coverage of late regarding child abductions (and usually, though joyfully not always, murder)....","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30026,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/29\/bad-statistics-in-a-bad-cause.html","url_meta":{"origin":2166,"position":2},"title":"Bad statistics in a bad cause","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 29-Aug-12 6:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The awful thing about this is that people will say, \"Hey, an obstetrics professor says it's true\" without even considering that he's not drawing on any sort of scientific \/ obstetric knowledge to come to this conclusion, but did some really crappy statistical mashups. Dolt.Reshared post from +David Badash Embedded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14643,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/04\/27\/tweets-from-three_star_dave-on-2009-04-27.html","url_meta":{"origin":2166,"position":3},"title":"Tweets from @Three_Star_Dave on 2009-04-27","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 27-Apr-09 11:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, after a long day of yard-excellent gentle drizzle yesterday, we ended up with 3-4\" of snow overnight. No need for sprinklers yet! # RT @Kyrion: 23 years ago today, the Chernobyl accident occurred. # And trying to figure out if Swine Flu is actualy apocalyptic horseman or this week's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27440,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/17\/this-ones-for-margie-3.html","url_meta":{"origin":2166,"position":4},"title":"This one's for Margie","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 17-Apr-12 8:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Statistical analysis is cool -- as long as the underlying data is reliable. #ddtb Embedded Link Why are so many men pregnant? | Straight Statistics A lot of reliance is placed on hospital coding, the three or four-letter codes that are used as a shorthand to categorise the conditions suffered\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33943,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/20\/click-it-or-ticket.html","url_meta":{"origin":2166,"position":5},"title":"Click-It or Ticket","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 20-May-13 6:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Not only is it a statistical no-brainer as far as driving safety goes, but if you're a Colorado resident then over the next few weeks, it could save you some money. 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