Never use bar charts! Case study #1
This graphic comes from the New York Times article “Social Security Disability Cases Last Longer as Backlog Rises.” It obviously intends to show how applications have increased since 1998. This…
How to Exaggerate Your Results: Case study #2
That’s a fairly typical ad, which is now running on TV, and which is also on Glad’s web site. Looks like a clear majority would rather buy Glad’s fine trash…
Why most statistics don’t mean what you think they do: Part II.
In Part I of this post, we started with a typical problem: which of two advertising campaigns was “better” in terms of generating more sales. Campaigns A and B were…
Why most statistics don’t mean what you think they do: Part I.
Here’s a common, classical statistics problem. Uncle Ted’s chain of Kill ’em and Grill ’em Venison Burgers tested two ad campaigns, A and B, and measured the sales of sausage…
Hurricanes have not increased in the North Atlantic
My paper on this subject will finally appear in the Journal of Climate soon. You can see it’s status (temporarily, anyway) at this link. You can download the paper here.…
The Algebra of Probable Inference: Richard T. Cox
This is a lovely, lovely book and I can’t believe it has taken me this long to find and read it (November 2005: I was lead to this book via…
How to Exaggerate Your Results: Case study #1
In the Tuesday, 6 November 2007 edition of the Wall Street Journal, Pfizer took out a full-page ad encouraging people to “Ask your doctor” about Lipitor, a drug which claims…