Posts filed under Stat of the Week (619)

If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!

Congratulations to David Farrar for his nomination last week in our Stat of the Week competition.

He nominated this table on the NZ Herald (click to enlarge the screenshot):

We liked that the Herald were quick to fix the mistake after being alerted of it, but it would have been helpful to also include a note that it had been updated since published.

Thomas Lumley commented that while the totals were just a mistake, not a premeditated misuse, the whole table was a bad idea.

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday March 29 2013.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of March 23 – 29 2013 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

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If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday March 22 2013.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of March 16 – 22 2013 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

(more…)

If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday March 15 2013.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of March 9 – 15 2013 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

(more…)

If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!

Thank you for all the fantastic Stat of the Summer nominations.

Congratulations to Jonathan Goodman for winning a copy of Tufte’s book “Beautiful Evidence” whose nomination explained and neatly summarised the NZ Herald article “Women with more sex partners turn to drink and drugs”:

“The title and the first paragraphs make the statements that the more promiscuous you have been in the past, the more likely you are now to be dependent on drugs and alcohol. That being promiscuous causes dependency.

“Women who averaged more than 2.5 sexual partners a year in the years leading up to each interview with the researchers were 10 times as likely as women who had only one or no sexual partners a year to be clinically dependent on alcohol or drugs at age 21. They were seven times as likely by age 26 and 17 times as likely by age 32, even after allowing for all other factors in their lives.”

The increase in likelihood of dependence as the number of years of promiscuity increases is seen as evidence that promiscuity causes alcohol and drug dependence.

However the article then paraphrases the researches by saying “The researchers said the link between the number of partners and later substance dependence might be due to the “shared context” of drinking and meeting people in bars, or to both behaviours being related to underlying risk-taking attitudes.”

While the author of the article claims in the title that researchers have found that promiscuous activities drives people to drink and drugs, all the researchers have found out is that there is a correlation between the two. As we all know Correlation does not imply Causation.”

Thank you to everyone who took part and we are now resuming our weekly competition, so please keep your nominations coming in!

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday March 8 2013.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of March 2 – 8 2013 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

(more…)