Even statistics researchers find that statistics can be— and sometimes are—tricky to use. A recent study by two mathematically-inclined marketing professors demonstrated that many statisticians get confused about (or ignore) some supposedly simple things: “Statistical Significance and the Dichotomization of Evidence,” Blakeley B. McShane [pictured here, pouring coffee] and David Gal, Journal of the American Statistical […]
Tag: statistics
Statistical Methods Using the Stick-on-the-Wall Spaghetti Rule
The belief that “statistics is like spaghetti” is a good starting point from which to savor this new study about statistics and spaghetti: “Exploration of Experimental Design and Statistical Methods Using the Stick-on-the-Wall Spaghetti Rule,” Simone Montangero, Francesca Vittone, Sally Olderbak, and Oliver Wilhelm, Teaching Statistics, epub 2018. The authors, at Universität Ulm, Germany, explain: […]
Can Consumers Recognize the Taste of their Favorite Beer? (podcast #99)
Do people delude themselves about prizing — or even recognizing — recognizing the taste of their favorite beer? A research study explores that very question, and we explore that study, in this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams discusses a published taste-this-beer, taste-that-beer study. Yale/MIT/Harvard biomedical researcher Chris Cotsapas lends his voice, and his scientific expertise, […]
Selfies and sharks, and statistical dangers
Comparisons of selfies and sharks, and of pretty much any pair of things, come out differently depending on how careful you are in making — or judging — the comparison. Gary Smith, of Ponona College, explains: We are now told that selfies are more than dangerous than sharks, with 8 deaths this year from shark […]