Thankful For A Bountiful Harvest - How Bountiful Was It And Who Produced It? | Stats + Stories Episode 45 (REPOST)
Linda J. Young is Chief Mathematical Statistician and Director of Research and Development of USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service . She oversees efforts to continually improve the methodology underpinning the Agency's collection and dissemination of data on every facet of U.S. agriculture. She works on the surveys designed to characterize agricultural activity in the US.
Statistical literacy was described by Iddo Gal as "the ability to interpret, critically, evaluate and communicate about statistical information and messages". With that in mind, get ready to take a journey on all the ways our guests are promoting statistical literacy in this episode of Stats+Stories.
Glickman/Lesser Interview Starts at 27:42
Pedro Campos is the Deputy Director of the International Statistical Literacy Project (ISLP) and associate professor in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Porto, and director of the methodology unit at Statistics Portugal. He also leads the team of statistical literacy at the global network of institutions for statistical training from the UN, where he helps promote statistical literacy worldwide.
Larry Lesser is a professor in the Mathematical Sciences Department of the University of Texas at El Paso. He's also an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association. Lesser has won a number of awards for his work within and outside of his discipline. He's also a singer-songwriter whose passion for combining music and STEM has made its way into his research, grant writing, teaching, outreach, and service, and most of his published poems and songs are STEM-related.
Mark Glickman is a senior lecturer of statistics at the Harvard University Department of Statistics and a senior statistician at the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, a Veterans Administration center of innovation. He's also a fellow of the American Statistical Association. Before joining Harvard, he was a research professor of health policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health. He's also served as an elected member of the American Statistical Association's board of directors, as representative of the Council of sections, governing board from night from 2019 to 2021.
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No One is Poisoning Your Kids' Candy, Trust the Numbers | Stats + Stories Episode 206 (REPOST)
The costumes are ready and the annual opportunity to go out and harass your neighbors to get candy is once again upon us. Yes, it's time for Halloween. And along with Halloween comes the worry, the concern the fear that in fact, someone will be poisoning my kid’s candy. This is something that has lived with us for decades and we have someone today that will help us investigate this mystery on this episode of Stats and Short Stories with guest Joel Best.
Joel Best is a Professor Of Sociology And Criminal Justice At The University Of Delaware. His writing focuses on understanding how and why we become concerned with particular issues at particular moments in time–why we find ourselves worried about road rage one year, and identity theft a year or so later. He’s written about the ways bad statistics creep into public debates, and about dubious fears, such as the mistaken belief that poisoned Halloween candy poses a serious threat to our kids. Check out his books Damned Lies and Statistics, More Damned Lies and Statistics, Stat-Spotting.
Data visualizations are everywhere, showing up in social media, in the news, and on company websites. With this onslaught, it can be hard to know what visualizations to trust. Learning how to navigate bad graphs and charts is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Nathan Yau.
Yau is the author of several books on data visualization, including Visualize This and a number of other works. He also runs the Flowing Data blog, where he works to make the process of creating data visualizations accessible to a wide audience. He recently published a defense against dishonest charts on his blog, which serves as a guide to determining which visualizations to trust.
Flowing Data's Origin and Development 2:32
Surprising Insights and Misleading Charts 7:55
Anatomy of a Chart and Common Misleading Techniques 12:25
Strategies for Reading Data and Interactive Charts 16:31
Feedback and Tools for Visualization 23:26
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The Age of the Supercentenarian | Stats + Stories Episode 229 (REPOST)
When American comedian and actor Betty White died, fans lamented the fact that she had just missed making it to her 100th birthday. They felt she’d been robbed of achieving a significant life moment. Some researchers think that this century could see more people making it to that moment and beyond. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Michael Pearce.
Michael Pearce is a PhD candidate in Statistics at the University of Washington, working under the supervision of Elena A. Erosheva. His primary research interests include preference learning and developing Bayesian statistical models for social science problems. In his spare time, Michael enjoys running, biking, and paddling around the Puget Sound.
Statistics need Stories to give them meaning. Stories need Statistics to give them credibility. Every Thursday John Bailer & Rosemary Pennington get together with a new, interesting guest to bring you the Statistics behind the Stories and the Stories behind the Statistics.