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Archive for the ‘Statistics’ Category

The Danger of Truthiness

Posted in Observation, Statistics, Thinking, Truthiness on September 11, 2011 | 4 Comments »

Apparently horses in races are almost always (98%) whipped.*  The main reason is to make them go faster. Congratulations to the scientists from the University of Sydney who won a prize for discovering that “whipping does not increase horses’ chances of finishing in the top three and that they actually run faster when they are not [...]

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Delinquency, wise and otherwise

Posted in Decision Making, Intuition, Statistics on April 7, 2010 | 1 Comment »

A version of  my Quadrant essay ” The Wise Delinquency of Decision Makers” was recently broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Ockham’s Razor program.  Audio and transcript available here. Robyn Williams, the great science journalist  and host of Ockham’s Razor, introduced it thusly: I remember a few years ago being on a committee choosing some prize [...]

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