Comments on: Good Math Slices Bad Bologna

By: interdigital papillomatosis

interdigital papillomatosis — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:48:17 +0000

I like this theme you are using… what is it?

Madingo.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:28:15 +0000

@TonyNZ,

Definitely agree that more effort should be put into identifying sources of error. I would actually call these “areas of uncertainty”. The way stats people think of “error” is in terms of random variables, which potentially excludes many types of information (like whether or not the coin you’re about to flip has two heads).

That said, in many cases (such as epidemiological studies) it is impractical to nail down more than a very small fraction of the specific uncertainties and their interrelationships. One should still include this information in the analysis, i.e. “I know there’s thousands of variables I haven’t measured, and I have little to no clue how they are related to the hypothesis under test”. This is generally ignored, which is why statistical associations from observational studies often seem far more compelling than simple common sense would indicate.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:37:37 +0000

Great post Tom. Thanks!

My pleasure, and as always, it’s good to hear from you.

By: TonyNZ

TonyNZ — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:13:28 +0000

Yeah we have it pretty good. There are a number of problems, but taken relative to anywhere else, I think I’d rather be here. As far as the debt burden, it is nowhere near as bad in the southern hemisphere, partly due to the failure of the banks to jump on the sub-prime bandwagon.

Then again, this was in the news today, so we aren’t exempt from rubbish.

If you can’t be bothered clicking the link, let me summarise…

OMG HEALTHY FAST FOOD CHOICES ARE MAKING PEOPLE FAT!

At least it wasn’t local research…

Looks like McDonald’s better dump those salads and save the nation’s health.

By: TonyNZ

TonyNZ — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:50:11 +0000

New Zealand: more than sheep, cheese and hobbits.

Haven’t seen this guy, but I have been to a couple of lectures of his contemporaries mentioned in his acknowledgements. New Zealand has some phenomenal university lecturers for it’s size. With two universities commonly in the top 100 globally and a population of 4 million, we don’t do too badly.

Sheep, cheese, excellent universities, good scenery from what I’ve seen in flicks … maybe I should emigrate. The government there isn’t busy running up any trillion-dollar deficits and saving the bill for future generations, is it?

By: Felix

Felix — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:30:42 +0000

There’s also an excellent book on the subject with the telling title “How to lie with statistics”

And it’s not that difficult to do. According to my research, 99% of the people who died from heart disease last year had eaten at least a pound of carrots in the previous 10 years.

By: Tom Naughton

Tom Naughton — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:16:09 +0000

@Sue –

Found a nice article about study statistics. The author manages to explain the concepts in plain English.

http://www.sportsci.org/resource/stats/pvalues.html

His home page is http://www.sportsci.org/resource/stats/index.html.

Lots of links to his articles, slideshows, etc. I’d say the guy is a real treasure trove for anyone who wants to learn about statistical analysis.

(Tony, you’ll be glad to know he’s a countryman of yours. You must grow good writers there.)

–Tom

By: Sue

Sue — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:23:02 +0000

P.S. I’ve read all of Dr Eades posts - he’s great.

Indeed. He has a rare ability to explain medical science to non-doctors.

By: Sue

Sue — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:19:48 +0000

Thanks Tom!

De nada. Hope the links help.

By: Sue

Sue — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 04:41:46 +0000

Do you know of a good site talking about statistics, etc.
I have an assignment to do where I have to critically appraise a research paper. I am doing a unit on evidence-based practice and this is one of the assignments we need to do. Very hard to understand the results that they are presenting. I haven’t done any statistics before.

You could check these to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_interval

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value

The book “Super Crunchers” has some good chapters on statistics, pretty readable.

Mike Eades has also written some excellent articles about how to analyze studies. Here’s one.

Here’s another.

And another. And one more.

If anyone else knows of a good site that explains statistics in plain English, shout it out.