Stats + Stories

If the last year’s done anything, it’s made clear how important statistics and data can be to our understanding of the world. It’s not just statisticians and public health officials pouring over things like positivity rates or infection rates, the general public’s also become more familiar with the concepts. But, sometimes, highly visible data can lead to some highly suspect conclusions. And bad data, like bad romance, can lead to bad decisions. Damned lies and dubious data are the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Joel Best. Best is a Professor Of Sociology And Criminal Justice At The University Of Delaware. His writing focuses on understanding how and why we become concerned with particular issues at particular moments in time–why we find ourselves worried about road rage one year, and identity theft a year or so later. He’s written about the ways bad statistics creep into public debates, and about dubious fears, such as the mistaken belief that poisoned Halloween candy poses a serious threat to our kids. Check out his books Damned Lies and Statistics, More Damned Lies and Statistics, Stat-Spotting. https://www.joelbest.net/dubious-statistics

Race science, the belief that there are inherent biological differences between human races, has been “repeatedly debunked” in the words of the Guardian, and yet, like a pseudo-scientific hydra it raises its heard every so often. Most recently race science is the return of scientific racism is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, where we explore the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics with guest Angela Saini. Angela Saini is a science journalist, author and broadcaster. She presents radio and television programmes for the BBC, and her writing has appeared across the world, including in New Scientist, Prospect, The Sunday Times, Wired, and National Geographic. In 2020 Angela was named one of the world's top 50 thinkers by Prospect magazine, and in 2018 she was voted one of the most respected journalists in the UK. Her latest book, Superior: The Return of Race Science, was published in May 2019 and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the Foyles Book of the Year.

Risk is a tricky thing. We like to think we understand it but when it gets down to brass tacks it can be harder to wrap your brain around things like acceptable or unacceptable risk. How do you define it how do people understand risk. The COVID-19 pandemic has only highlighted the trouble we sometimes have understanding risk, communicating risk is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with Baruch Fischhoff Baruch Fischhoff is the Howard Heinz University Professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy and Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University. Fischhoff’s a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the National Academy of Medicine and past President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making and of the Society for Risk Analysis. He was founding chair of the Food and Drug Administration Risk Communication Advisory Committee and chaired the National Research Council Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security. His research focuses on judgment and decision making, including risk perception and risk analysis. Fischoff is the author of a number of books on the subject, including Acceptable Risk and Risk: A Very Short Introduction.

What are the odds of your favorite team's victory, how much should they spend on a big name player, we discuss this other topics this on today's episode of Stats+Stories with guest Robert Mastrodomenico Mastrodomenico is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society as well as owner and founder of his statistical consulting company Global Sports Statistics.. He is also the Chair of RSS’ Statisticians for Society initiative since its inception in 2017. He is also an RSS Statistical Ambassador, which involves regular work with the media in assisting with their reporting of statistical issues.

Scientific publications drive science, well that's stating the obvious, isn't it, but the form and way it's processed is historic. It's historic in the sense that there are journals that are gatekeepers, their editors that are sending out submissions to reviewers, who are then providing comments, and then it's almost that it's set in stone and locked in place for the future. But there are challenges to this and one of the challenges is the focus of this episode of Stats+Short Stories with guest Alexandra Freeman. Alexandra Freeman is the Executive Director of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, a role she took up in 2016. She previously spent 16 years working for the BBC, primarily a producer and director for BBC Science. Alexandra is passionate about bringing science to the widest possible audience. Along with working in television she has also helped develop content for computer games, social media and websites, as well as formal learning resources

This has been a year for numbers. COVID states have been a collective obsession. Vote percentages surprising. Hours spent online ... unending. The Royal Statistical Society has run the numbers and has voted for its Stats of the Year. That’s the focus of this episode Stats and Stories with guest Jennifer Rogers. Rogers is an experienced statistical consultant who has a special interest in the development and application of novel statistical methodologies, particularly in medicine, although her portfolio of clients cuts across a wide variety of applications. She works alongside other statisticians, clinicians, computer scientists, industry experts and regulators. Rogers is Vice President for Statistical Research and Consultancy at PHASTAR, a global contract research organisation. Rogers directs the statistical research strategy, helping the company stay at the cutting edge of new methodological advances. Rogers also regularly works with journalists to improve the reporting of statistics in the media. She is a popular statistics presenter and can often be heard on the Radio or seen on TV screens. She has made a number of appearances on BBC Radio 4's More or Less and appeared on series 42 of BBC Watchdog where she presented their "Best or Worst" segment.

Communicating risk is difficult at any time but during a pandemic, communicating risk well can be what keeps a disease from spreading, as one public health official has put it, like wildfire. During the COVID 19 pandemic, experts, journalists, and elected officials have all been working to find the most effective way to communicate risk to the public. Helping people understand their risks of infection – or of infecting others – can be the thing that gets them to follow mask mandates or other public health advisories. Effectively communicating risk in COVID 19 is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guests Alexandra Freeman and Claudia Schneider Alexandra Freeman is the Executive Director of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, a role she took up in 2016. She previously spent 16 years working for the BBC, primarily a producer and director for BBC Science. Alexandra is passionate about bringing science to the widest possible audience. Along with working in television she has also helped develop content for computer games, social media and websites, as well as formal learning resources. Claudia Schneider is a postdoctoral research associate with the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication and the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Laboratory. At the Winton Centre she studies the communication of uncertainty about evidence to various stakeholders, particularly the unquantified ‘quality of the underlying work’. Claudia received her PhD in Psychology from Columbia University and also held a graduate research scholar position at Princeton University. Her research focus lies at the intersection of decision science and applied social psychology. Her work uses a combination of methods ranging from quantitative laboratory surveys to field studies in diverse cultural and social settings.

Data can be powerful and persuasive rhetorical tools for nonprofits as they explain the work they day and ask for monetary support from various entities, but not all nonprofits can afford to hire a statistician to crunch numbers for them. An organization in the UK is working to meet the statistical needs of nonprofits and is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Robert Mastrodomenico. Mastrodomenico is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society as well as owner and founder of his statistical consulting company Global Sports Statistics.. He is also the Chair of RSS’ Statisticians for Society initiative since its inception in 2017. He is also an RSS Statistical Ambassador, which involves regular work with the media in assisting with their reporting of statistical issues.

Cities and small towns across America once woke up to their local newspaper on their doorstep. Over the last several decades, though, those newspapers have begun to disappear a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study showing that disappearance has heralded the rise of news deserts in the United States. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Penelope Abernathy. Penelope Muse Abernathy is a former executive at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, is the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University of North Carolina. A journalism professional with more than 30 years of experience as a reporter, editor and senior media business executive, she specializes in preserving quality journalism by helping news organizations succeed economically in the digital environment.  Her research focuses on the implications of the digital revolution for news organizations, the information needs of communities and the emergence of news deserts in the United States. She is author of “News Deserts and Ghost Newspapers: Will Local News Survive?” — a major 2020 report that documents the state of local journalism, what is as stake for our democracy, and the possibility of reviving the local news landscape, and she is the lead co-author of “The Strategic Digital Media Entrepreneur” (Wiley Blackwell: 2018), which explores in-depth the emerging business models of successful media enterprises.

Of all places to look for statistics, who’d have thought a settlement house would be a place that you would find insight into data of their communities. However, that’s the focus of this episode of Stats+Short Stories with guest Sharon Lohr. Lohr researches and writes about statistics: where they come from, how to interpret them, and how to tell the good statistics from the bad. After receiving her Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Sharon taught for 25 years at the University of Minnesota and Arizona State University, where she was Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Statistics. As a Vice President at Westat, she developed survey designs and statistical analysis methods for use in transportation, public health, crime measurement, and education. She now does freelance statistical consulting and writing. See the feature article about Sharon in the September 2018 issue of Amstat News.