Odds for having 12 sons

Sometimes people never learn. Jacque Wilson, in a piece for CNN titled: Calculating the odds: 12 sons in a row reports the odds at about 1 in 4000. The problem first is in calculating the odds after discovering an instance of the event. I can’t just flip a coin 12 times, get 12 heads and […]

Posted by Larry on October 29th, 2014 | 4 Comments Posted in Methodolgy Issues, Statistical Literacy, The Media

Who pays the most taxes? A worthless graphic

I spotted this graphic over at CNN tonight. But they don’t get the real credit as it came from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The full CNN article is here, and the interactive graphic is here. It is hard to imagine how to construct a less informative graphic to compare tax rates around […]

Posted by Larry on May 2nd, 2014 | Comments Off on Who pays the most taxes? A worthless graphic Posted in Data Quality, Don't Use the Mean, Graphics Visualization, How to Lie with Statisics, Methodolgy Issues, Statistical Literacy, The Media

Costs – child care vs college

I spotted the graphic at the right in the Washington Post last week. My first thought was that this was two dimensional data being shown in a one dimensional graphic. The differences shown are the product a very separate economic factors. Day care costs are very likely linked to local cost of living factors and […]

Posted by Larry on April 13th, 2014 | Comments Off on Costs – child care vs college Posted in Methodolgy Issues, Telling the Full Story
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