Chance News 40: Difference between revisions
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issues. So far they have provided the following modules: | issues. So far they have provided the following modules: | ||
Coincidences< | Coincidences<br> | ||
National Lottery<br> | National Lottery<br> | ||
Premier League<br> | Premier League<br> | ||
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To be continued | To be continued | ||
==Are bad models or bad data to blame?== | |||
[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/how-wall-streets-quants-lied-to-their-computers How Wall Street Lied to Its Computers], Saul Hansell, New York Times Technology Blog, September 18, 2008. | |||
Revision as of 22:10, 18 September 2008
Quotation
When I worked at the Labor Party think tank, trying to talk about these issues [oppression of Muslim women], people always accused me of failing to back up my arguments with data. But hard numbers were completely unavailable. When I tried to find out about honor killings, for instance-how many girls were killed every year in Holland by their fathers and brothers because of their precious family honor-civil servants at the Ministry of Justice would tell me, "We don't register murders based on that category of motivation. It would stigmatize one group in society." The Dutch government registered the number of drug-related killings and traffic accidents every year, but not the number of honor killings, because no Dutch official wanted to recognize that this kind of murder happened on a regular basis.
Infidel, Free Press: New York NY
pages 295-296.
Suggested by Steve Simon
Forsooth
From the Independent, 13/09/08:
Last week, a formatting error led to us inadvertently suggesting that there was a one in 1,019 chance of the world ending before this edition. That should have read, er, one in 1019 – rather less likely. Sorry. Feel free to remove the crash helmet.
Suggested by Gareth Hagger-Johnson
From SEED Magazine (October 2008)
If you play golf, you could be adding five years to your life. A new study
shows that the death rate for Scandanavian golfers is 40% lower than for those who don't golf. The reason may be simple: Golfers walk, spend time outdoors, and developing social relationships. The social interaction can be especially important for the older age groups. Researchers have not ruled out the possibility that golfers simply live healthy lives in
general, but they believe that the game itself does have health benefits.
Submitted by William Montante
Understanding Uncertainty
This website is maintained by David Spiegelhalter at Cambridge University with the help of others. The website provides modules that analize uncertanty issues. So far they have provided the following modules:
Coincidences
National Lottery
Premier League
What is Probability?
Risk in the media
How long are you going to live?
As they are completed a more detailed discussion appears in the Cambridge Math Journal [1]
The most recent issue includes the article uncertainty: How long will you live? by Mike Pearson and David Spiegelhalter. As in previous module this module includes elegent animations provided by Mike Pearson. The data for this module consists of UK interim life tables 1982-2006.
From the first animation we see the age and the % Hazard = Chance of death before next birthday and the age of the individual lives evolve through time.
From the second animation we can find the chance of death before our next birthday. I put in 83 and find that my my chance of dying before my next birthday is 9.1%.
From the third animation I find that my lifet expectance is 89. However since I am
To be continued
Are bad models or bad data to blame?
How Wall Street Lied to Its Computers, Saul Hansell, New York Times Technology Blog, September 18, 2008.