This thought crossed my mind once again when I read this passage from India: A Portrait (p. 118): The politician Harold Cox, who had taught mathematics at Aligargh Muslim University, was once advised by a judge in India: “Cox, when you are a bit older, you will not quote Indian statistics with that assurance. The Government are very keen on amassing statistics – they collect them, add...
1,800 college students die each year from alcohol is a myth
And pretty crappy science as well: But there is another problem with the data. The research appears to assume that alcohol-related motor-vehicle crashes were caused by the presence of alcohol. But since at least 2003, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has emphatically warned that the data do not mean that alcohol consumption caused the crashes … In other words, an accident...
Crappiness of data and wisdom of elders
Stamos is fond of telling a story about sitting down with an engineer whom an acquaintance had referred to him for advice. “I meet with the kid and he’s twenty-one, twenty-two,” Stamos recalls. “He was smart. A Harvard computer-science major.” The kid said he’d already done two start-ups and was looking to try a third. His previous venture was a website where women could enter their medical...