statistics
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To every thing, there is a season
Most of us are aware of the seasonal cycle of influenza outbreaks, which for Americans peak in the winter. In a new paper, Micaela Martinez, PhD, a scientist at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, makes a case that all infectious diseases have a seasonal element. The “Pearl” article appears in the journal Read more
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Hunting the Wild Placebo
The New York Times’ Gary Greenberg asks “What if the Placebo Effect Isn’t a Trick?” and gets some interesting answers. Along the way, he tells the interesting history of the placebo and how it has become a standard in FDA=approved clinical trials. My only question for the FDA is this: if someone were to attempt Read more
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Gee Whiz, GraphViz!
Sometimes you need to draw a simple network diagram, like this Hasse diagram but you don’t have a good graph drawing tool. Get Graphviz! Easy to learn, scriptable, and FREE. Read more
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The Fourier Transform, explained beautifully
At the Better Explained blog, Kalid Azad hits another home run with An Interactive Guide to the Fourier Transform. Here’s a plain-English metaphor: What does the Fourier Transform do? Given a smoothie, it finds the recipe. How? Run the smoothie through filters to extract each ingredient. Why? Recipes are easier to analyze, compare, and modify Read more
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Whether to ask the question invites an answer
The Justice Department and the Census Bureau are engaged in a kerfuffle over the 2020 Census. It’s all about a question of citizenship: “What country are you a citizen of?” With the inevitable congressional reapportionment that occurs based on the Census, this is a question that many states really don’t want to know the answer Read more
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Our National Blind Spot
Want to save the planet? How about starting by saving the birds. Here’s a Pareto graph that gives a strong hint of where to start: That’s right, get the cat population under control. Eradicate feral cat colonies, and euthanize cat collections (oh, and institutionalize obsessive cat ladies). The whole country needs to grow up and Read more
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Science is getting exciting!
Five very interesting articles recently popped up on the web, suggesting that current science is much more interesting than the average Joe might think: At FiveThirtyEight*, Christie Aschwanden’s Science Isn’t Broken gives a great exposition on scientific fraud, p-hacking, and why science is much more difficult than most folks realize. Robert Matthews, writing in UAE’s Read more
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When all you have is a hammer…
…everything looks like a nail. Daniel Lakens, the 20% Statistician, takes a rare but easy shot at statisticians and null hypothesis significance testing. Our statistics education turns a blind eye to training people how to ask a good question. After a brief explanation of what a mean is, and a pit-stop at the normal distribution, Read more
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Seven Pillars
Wisdom hath built her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars. –Proverbs 9:1 I just finished Stephen Stigler’s The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom, and I’m daunted–and embarrassed that I waited so long to read it. Stigler gives us a structure and taxonomy to statistical thinking* that gives us the “big picture” of statistics. Read more
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Houston, We Have a Solution
Long-time south Texas residents swear by the H-E-B grocery chain for value, selection, quality, and always being well-stocked. These guys are supply-chain ninjas; we see groceries, they see a logistics network. And they always step up in emergencies; Houston may be their finest hour to date. Tip from American Digest. Read more
The Random Texan 