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Thoughts on religion, politics, life and death. And other banned topics.

Tag: statistics

  • Why Stories Circulate about Covid-19 Deaths

    I’ve seen several posts on Facebook claiming that deaths of relatives or friends have been falsely attributed to covid-19 when in fact they were due to some other cause. These anecdotes represent a misunderstanding of the way statistics work and how data for statistics is collected. Of course, researchers want as accurate a count as…

  • Meaningless Statistics

    Once again the Minnesota Department of Transportation is putting the word out that drunk drivers cause 1 in 4 traffic deaths. I begin with this example of a meaningless statistic, not because it is especially egregious, but because it exemplifies what makes statistics meaningless. Of course, it is not entirely meaningless. We all have a…