Are you interested in, or confused by, statistics?

[factor-fiction]

There is a fascinating series on Radio 4 every Friday about the use and abuse of statistics. Last week they exposed, amongst other things, some of the extremely misleading statistics being used by the government and unions regarding public sector pensions. It's all done with a lot of humour.


Here's a link to details of the programme that's on later this afternoon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017x76r

[ChuckFickens]

Sounds interesting (although I choose pure and applied as opposed to stats when I was doing maths)

[albaqwerty]

To paraphrase, there's lies, darned lies and statistics.

However, I do like humourous radio programmes, might try to find Radio 4 on mine.

[factor-fiction]

You don't need to be an expert on statistics. Give it a go.
To give you the flavour, here are some recent programmes- just use Listen Again and dip in
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd

[LazyGun]

I download the podcasts - excellent series imo

[jake-the-peg]

Actually I tend to think that statistics never lie, which is why liars are so strongly attracted to them!

[bobthefisherman]

"88.2% of statistics are made up on the spot" - Vic Reeves

[wildwood]

... and the other 11.8% is just straight out lies.

[rov1100]

Economists use statistics don't they?

[atalanta]

try these: a man was accused in court of killing his wife. He had been known to beat her up. The defence counsel declared, quite truthfully " of all men who bash their wives, only one in a thousand goes on to kill her". The prosecutor replied with " Of every woman who was proved to have been killed by her husband, one in every two was previously bashed by the same man". Both statistics are perfectly true.
He was convicted, by the way.

[jake-the-peg]

So the problem is that people tend not to understand statistics and draw too much of a conclusion from them.

People love averages but don't understand distributions for example.

And I say that as a man with more than the average number of arms

[dundurn]

A statistician is someone who could see a man with one foot in a fire and the other in a freezer and describe him as comfortable, on average.

[DTCwordfan]

try supermarket pricing as well......that was on TV this last week Beeb 1 I think

[HowardKennitby]

There is a very interesting book on the subject of misuse of statistics called 'The Tiger that Isn't'. It is worth a read.

[Old_Geezer]

Statistics is a black art. Any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.

[Old_Geezer]

Evidence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox

[mibn2cweus]

//And I say that as a man with more than the average number of arms//

. . . and legs too, I reckon! ;o)

[factor-fiction]

^ It all depends on how you define and calculate 'average'- mean =1 99, median =2 or mode=2. And even the mean can be arithmetic, geometric or harmonic..

That Simpson's Paradox article is excellent, Old_Geezer. Thanks