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More "misuses/limitations of statisitics" examples?


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OK so not a serious one but this one cracks my kids up :)  It's our go to reminder of how easy it is to abuse statistics.  I personally think the correlation between kids taking Algebra in the 8th grade and college attendance leading schools to insist on Algebra in the 8th grade is a simple example.  That one came up yesterday so it's fresh on my mind.  But dh and I are constantly yelling at the news because of the ridiculous conclusions they draw.

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She would probably get a kick out of Zaccaro's Ten Things: it's all about statistical, mathematical, and reasoning mistakes.  Both my kids really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Things-Future-Mathematicians-Scientists-Rarely/dp/0967991544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396536618&sr=8-1&keywords=ten+things+all+future+mathematicians

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1489299_692092917502028_1591548442_n.jpg

OK so not a serious one but this one cracks my kids up :) It's our go to reminder of how easy it is to abuse statistics. I personally think the correlation between kids taking Algebra in the 8th grade and college attendance leading schools to insist on Algebra in the 8th grade is a simple example. That one came up yesterday so it's fresh on my mind. But dh and I are constantly yelling at the news because of the ridiculous conclusions they draw.

This reminds me of the limerick about the man from Perth.

 

There once was a man from Perth

Who was born on the day of his birth

He was wed, so they say

On his wife's wedding day

And he died on his last day on earth.

 

I mean, what are the odds?!

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You could watch Fox News for a bit. We have family who are very conservative and a few who do not like to analyze things incredibly deeply. They will post things to Facebook which make me truly concerned that they do not see the level of statistical manipulation. Liberal media does this as well - some of NPR's gun coverage after NewTown was close to as bad - but Fox seems to air it quite frequently. Bill O'Reilly is another great one for this. He has degrees from Boston University and Harvard, in broadcast journalism and public administration respectively. Both schools require quite a bit of formal rhetoric for those degrees. He pulls off fallacies of logic masterfully. In college a boyfriend and I would play drinking games watching O'Reilly do quite fantastic mental gymnastics with various tidbits of information. It was highly enjoyable, though that could have been the cheap alcohol and nostalgia talking.

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