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What Does It Show?

What Does It Show?. Math Olympiad 2011 Northwest Missouri State University Neil Hatfield. “Figures don’t lie, liars figure.” --Anonymous “Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.” --H. G. Wells. Deceptive Statistics.

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What Does It Show?

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  1. What Does It Show? Math Olympiad 2011 Northwest Missouri State University Neil Hatfield

  2. “Figures don’t lie, liars figure.” --Anonymous “Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.” --H. G. Wells

  3. Deceptive Statistics • Independent, active citizen/person • Critically think about the world around us • We need to be able to scrutinize data that are presented to us in our daily lives.

  4. Let’s Critically Examine Some Statistics • Keep in mind the following • Formulating a question or questions: • Question Analysis—What is the question? • Designing and Employing a plan for data collection. • Data Analysis—Where did they get their data? • Analyzing and summarizing the data. • Data Analysis—What do their summaries really tell us? • Data Analysis—What are graphs really honest? • Interpreting the results from the analysis. • Interpreting Studies—Does the data support what they said?

  5. Child poverty before and after government intervention—UNICEF, 1996 • What does this chart tell you? • The United States has the highest rate of child poverty among developed nations (22% of children under 18). • Its government does the least—through taxes and subsidies—to remedy the problem (size of blue bar and percent difference between orange and blue bars). • BUT…note how the poverty line is defined! The poverty line is defined as 50% of national median income.

  6. Oats Lower Cholesterol Levels!!! WOW! ~75% Drop

  7. Oats Lower Cholesterol…But Not By Much Drop ~4% PS: Placebo ~7%

  8. Which Car Company is Better?

  9. They are all about the same!

  10. Oklahoma Looks Good, Really Good

  11. Oklahoma Still Looks Good

  12. “An Inconvenient Truth”

  13. The Actual Truth

  14. Dubuque School Success

  15. Could Dubuque Continue The Gains?

  16. So What Happened? • “Some parents of special education students have complained that their students were tested separately from their classmates and that their scores were not included in the averages.” • Dubuque Telegraph Herald, 3/6/94 • The two years represent two very different populations.

  17. Math vs. Legal Experts • Andrew Martin and Kevin Quinn pitted a crude statistical model against 83 legal experts to predict how each Supreme Court Justices would vote in 2002. • The Model contained six factors: • Circuit court of Origin • Issues area of the case (free speech, civil rights, etc.) • The type of petitioner (United States, an employer, etc.) • The type of respondent (United States, an employer, etc.) • Was the lower court ruling liberal or conservative? • Did the petitioner argue that a law or practice was unconstitutional?

  18. The Results Are In… Correct Incorrect Legal Experts Mathematics 75% 59% 25% 41%

  19. The Chevy Volt • In 2010, Chevy advertised it’s new Hybrid Electric Car, the Volt, as getting 230 miles per gallon. • The volt can travel 40 miles on a full charge and then will travel approximately 50 miles for each gallon of gas. • Does it really get 230 miles per gallon?

  20. Let’s Travel The Chevy volt can go 40 miles with no gas and then 50 miles per gallon after that.

  21. Supporting Northwest Yet? • In 1950, James Vicary announced the results of his six-week experiment on the power of subliminal advertising. • He flashed super shot clips saying “Drink Coca-Cola” and ‘Hungry? Eat Popcorn” during a film • Results: and 18% increase in Coca-Cola and 58% increase in Popcorn sales!!!

  22. Supporting Northwest Yet? • Psychology and Advertising classes devote attention to subliminal messaging but there is a catch… • No one has been able to re-create Vicary’s experiment. • Why? • It’s all made up!!!! • Have you caught on to the subliminal messaging? Watch the corner!

  23. What to Take Away • Don’t believe everything you read, see, or hear. • Think critically about the statistics that are presented. • We must show honest and fair statistics, even if those statistics don’t lead us to the answer we want.

  24. Reference • Zaccaro, E. and Zaccaro, D. (2010). Scammed by statistics: How we are lied to, cheated and manipulated by statistics…and why you should care.

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