![[two red and blue carton human figures are climbing a normal distribution curve that is decorated with the American flag.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2020/10/politicalhill.jpg)
The election is almost here and the election forecasters are in full swing. As of October 23rd, the Economist gives Biden a 92% chance of winning, and FiveThirtyEight has him winning 88 out of 100 “simulated” elections. How should we interpret these claims? If you have a coin and you flip it a thousand times, and it lands on heads 500 times and tails 500 times then you may infer it has a 50% probability of landing on heads and a 50% probability tails. Sounds simple, except, we’re not going to run this election thousands of times, we’re only going to run it once.
Tag: Statistics
How many people has COVID-19 really killed in the U.S.?
In late August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated their provisional death counts page to indicate that COVID-19 was the sole cause of death listed on death certificates in only 6% of cases. This fact was interpreted by some as only 6% of reported fatalities, or around 10,000 people, actually died of… Read more »
Groundhog Day 2020: Probability in perspective
This post is from ScIU’s archives. It was originally published by Lana Ruck in February 2018 and has been lightly edited to reflect current events. Tomorrow will be the 134th official Groundhog Day in the United States. Celebrated in Canada, Germany, and the U.S., the holiday derives from a long-standing German-Dutch tradition, which we’ve been… Read more »
An Archaeological Introduction to Coding in Python
Programming skills are not only becoming more in demand in industry jobs, they’re also becoming a required skill in academia as well. Programming is now used in almost every discipline for tasks such as data collection, organization, and analysis. In this post, I’m going to demonstrate how some basic programming in Python can be used… Read more »
Dispatches from the statistics wars
We recently took a guided tour of statistical significance, in which we focused on how the media often fails to correctly interpret statistical information. But, journalists are not the only group that is tripped up by statistics. The scientific community itself has been engaged in deep debate about the proper use of statistical methodology. These debates… Read more »
The perils of publish or perish
Academia is a tough career choice. The pay is low (especially for graduate students), the hours are long, and the job market is uncertain. Those entering the field often receive this simple advice — “publish or perish.” Publications are the central method by which people are evaluated in academia. One either continually publishes papers, ideally… Read more »
A skeptic’s guide to statistical significance
“There’s no safe amount of alcohol,” CNN reported. This year the largest ever study on the health risks of alcohol was released, attracting mass media attention and igniting a science journalism furor over its interpretation. In the study, researchers found a significant increased in risk of death for individuals who consume even one drink a day…. Read more »
Groundhog Day 2018: Probability in perspective
This Friday will be the 132nd official Groundhog Day in the United States. Celebrated in Canada, Germany, and the U.S., the holiday derives from a long-standing German-Dutch tradition, which we’ve been officially recording since 1886. The basic idea: if a groundhog emerges from his hole and sees his shadow, winter will last for six more… Read more »
How researchers use sequencing techniques for social science research
Have you ever wondered why or how researchers categorize people into different groups? Of course, there are specific types of groups you might first think of, such as differentiating people by race, gender, income level, marital status, and education. However, there are a variety of other types of groups that researchers might find interesting that… Read more »
What is change??
What is “change”? This might at first seem like an oddly philosophical question to encounter in a science blog. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once described change as the idea that “One cannot step into the same river twice” (paraphrased; Graham 2015). However, this more existential definition for change differs in important ways from the one… Read more »