http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17434638
This may seem not too have any direct relevance to cycling, but, as we have seen so many times, a good understanding of statistics is key to the cycling debate.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Go figure: Why nothing is really news at all
(4 posts)-
Posted 13 years ago #
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An article on BBC News Scotland irritated me last night. Dramatic headlines of 'Only 17% of university entrants from poorest homes'.
And?
In my mind poorest describes the extremity (call it those in the bottom 10% of income), so managing to get 17% of overall entrants from 10% of homes would be a great success story. I can only assume that the actual figures were that only 17% came from the bottom half of the income scale (in which case there is a problem), but then the use of the word poorest is deliberately misleading. It would be the same as telling someone earning £21k that they were one of the richest in the UK (based on 2009 median).
Gtumble, grumble...
Posted 13 years ago # -
Radio 4 does a 15-minute "look behind the statistics" show called More or Less. They do great, easily understandable analysis of key stories and facts from the week and are generally able to pull most of them apart and rubbish most things that come out of the mouths of cabinet ministers!
Posted 13 years ago # -
One of the television programmes we were shown in primary school provided a basic introduction to the need to develop a mistrust of statistics, with one particularly sticky example citing that sales of an imaginary unpleasant confection were increasing exponentially in the large blue area covering most of the area of the selected map, with just the little green area on the far right still resisting, the little green area being the UK and the big blue area being the Atlantic. Biology and chemistry teachers in secondary school threw in a lot of unpicking correlation/causation and the importance of determining the statistical significance of things, seeing as it didn't seem to be covered by anyone else.
Posted 13 years ago #
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