Or You Can Lie With Statistics but it’s a Lot Easier with Words

Paul Ricci, MS PhD(c)

@CSIwoDB

Everything is Numbers Statistics are used to estimate & describe patterns in

nature that aren’t easy to see with the naked eye

Sports-Earned Run Average, Slugging Percentage, QB Rating, Goals Against Average

Economics-Gross Domestic Product, Unemployment, Inflation

Medicine-Heart Rate, % Body Fat, T-Cell Counts

Education-IQ Scores, SAT scores, Dropout Rates

As long the statistic is from a source of data that is verifiable, it’s hard to lie using it.

Ominous Quote Joseph Stalin “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths

are a statistic.”

Translation you need to supplement statistical information with more personal info.

Types of Statistics Measures of Central Tendency (aka Averages)

Continuous-Number can take any value.

Mean (sum of all data divided by the number of data points)

Median (midpoint of all data when it is ranked from highest to lowest)

Mode (most frequently occurring data value)

Discrete-Value can only take certain values eg. 0 or 1, true or false.

Proportion-sum of values taking a certain value for a given variables divided by the maximum value for that variable.

Types of Statistics (cont.) Measures of Spread

Range-highest data value-lowest data value

Variance-Average squared deviation from the mean

Standard Deviation-square root of the variance

Probability

Used to measure the chance of events

Also used to make a statement about the relationship between a sample and a population that it’s taken from eg. margin of error.

But a Summary Statistic can Never Tell You the Whole StoryGraph with States Graph without States

Graph TypesBar Graph-Good visually but not good for trends

Line Graph-Better for showing trends over time

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Graph Types (Cont)This is the first pie chart created by Florence Nightingale to show the number of British soldiers in the Crimean War who died due to infection rather than combat injuries.

Graph Types (cont.)Mapping using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is a good way to represent data by region. In this graph I showed which areas of the city have the highest number of crimes by census tract in the city for 2005.

Posting Graphs on the Web Line, Bar, Pie, & other Graphs can be created using

Microsoft Excel, SPSS, SAS, ArcGIS, R, & other Packages

If that data package will allow you to save that graph as a .jpg, .gif, or .png file you can easily add it to your blog.

Microsoft Excel requires a visual basic command to save graphs as image files.

Statistical Packages Microsoft Excel-Most readily available but not really

built for all but basic statistical analysis. OK to make basic graphs.

SPSS-Better for more advanced analysis and graphics but less accessible due to cost. User friendly.

R-Free software package that can be downloaded from the web. Can do many types of analyses. BUT it is syntax driven. Can save graphics as image files using syntax.

Cutting Edge Graphics The Gapminder institute provides great interactive

graphics for free that can be seen in the documentary the Joy of Stats.

URL: www.gapminder.org

Joy of Stats Clip: http://csiwodeadbodies.blogspot.com/2010/12/income-and-life-expectancy-what-does-it.html

The website Fractracker uses advanced graphics and mapping techniques to monitor the impacts of Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania and New York.

URL: http://www.fractracker.org/

Poor Statistical Reasoning Example The blog The Audacious Epigone posted an analysis of

the IQ’s of a sample of McCain & Obama voters which can be seen at http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2011/05/iq-wars-mccains-voters-win.html

Some Good Statistical Blogs FiveThirtyEight-Nate Silver’s blog which forecasts

elections, the Oscars, and other sporting events. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

Data Visualisation-Has more examples of cutting edge graphics. http://www.datavis.ca/

The Incidental Economist-Good Analysis of health care data. http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/

CSI without Dead Bodies-My own website

http://csiwodeadbodies.blogspot.com

Sources of Data on the Web Many websites, such as The Census Bureau’s provide

data for download with which to do your own analysis. Example-Small Area Health Insurance Estimates

(SAHIE) makes state and county level estimates for the whole US from 2005-2007 (2008 and 2009 estimates are forthcoming) http://www.census.gov/did/www/sahie/index.html

Other sites provide data that can be copied and pasted into a data file. Example-CNN makes it’s poll reports available as PDF’s

but not the raw data

Summary When analyzing data leave no stones unturned

or if that is impossible turn over as many as possible and acknowledge that you couldn’t turn all of them over.

When interpreting an analysis ask yourself if they have turned over the important stones and or accounted for the ones that they couldn’t turnover.