[HN Gopher] How to Read a Log Scale ___________________________________________________________________ How to Read a Log Scale Author : Solstinox Score : 58 points Date : 2020-08-30 18:19 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (blog.datawrapper.de) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.datawrapper.de) | NicolasGorden wrote: | I often think that one of the biggest changes that could come | would be the mass adoption of through statistical analysis | classes as part of graduate programs. | | There's far, far too many people I've know who just don't | understand it. | | I also see many forces working against it. For one, it'd show up | the ignorance of a lot of the academic world. | | I've known high level people, like a MD, who simply didn't fully | grasp some basic concepts of statistical analysis (like P-value | hacking, questioning sample size, comparisons between raw | numbers, etc) | detaro wrote: | Statistics should be part of pretty much every step of | education IMHO. Even in elementary school you can teach useful | things about reading statistics, high-school math allows more, | and universities should cover it too (again with different | focus depending on subject and depth of math classes). It's | among the most universally useful in life parts of mathematics. | sukilot wrote: | Everyone in these industries takes statistics in college and | maybe grad school tool. The problem is (1) that statistics is | hard math and these people aren't math majors (2) if you do | statistics correctly you can never say anything bold with | confidence, which kills your career in any field except | statistics itself | tuatoru wrote: | Stats courses for non-statisticians should focus on teaching | people how to tell when they need to call in an expert. | (Which is most of the time, of course. And that is not unique | to statistics.) | | And academic journals in medicine etc. need to require that | research involving the use of statistics has been reviewed | and okayed by specialist statisticians, and prioritise | publishing null results. The last would save future | researchers a lot of time. | CharlesW wrote: | > _I often think that one of the biggest changes that could | come would be the mass adoption of through statistical analysis | classes as part of graduate programs._ | | Can anyone recommend a good introductory course, ideally with a | path to more advanced courses? | MaxBarraclough wrote: | > comparisons between raw numbers | | What do you mean by this one? | necheffa wrote: | Sometimes you cannot directly compare two numbers because | they are on two different scales. It is basically like saying | 10cm is bigger than 5in because there are 10, ignoring the | fact that if you normalized the values, 5in would be a larger | distance. | | Of course, it is usually never as obvious to the casual | observer as using inconsistent units of linear distance. | selectodude wrote: | A popular one is comparing the violence in cities by their | raw numbers instead of per-capita. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2020-08-30 23:00 UTC)