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Episode 0008: Misuse of statistics, and misunderstanding of randomness and probability
Hunting Humbug 101
English - August 29, 2014 21:00 - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingPhilosophy Society & Culture Education Courses skeptic skepticism science philosophy fallacy critical thinking tutorial education Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Misuse of statistics
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Clip from original episode
A bit from the classic British show, Yes Prime Minister.
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Apple WWDC keynote
Apple CEO Tim Cook at this year’s World Wide Developers Conference Keynote. He points out that Apple has an install base of 80 Million Macs.
Based on NetMarketShare data, as of May 2014, Windows 8 can be found on about 14 percent of all PCs currently running Windows. But with an overall market share of about 1.5 billion, Windows PCs represent nearly 91 percent of all computers in use worldwide. In simple terms, that means that Windows 8, widely considered a “failure” by critics and competitors, is in use on about 210 million PCs worldwide. That’s more than 5 times the install base of Mavericks, and more than 2.5 times the install base of every Mac currently in use. (Source: http://www.tekrevue.com/windows-8-outpaces-os-x-mavericks/)
This also ignores other points of difference. Windows 8 is a major update that pretty much people only get with new machines and have to pay for. Maveriicks is a minor free upgrade by comparison.
Full keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w87fOAG8fjk
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Andrew Bolt and climate contrarians
Analysis of this factoid:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/andrew-bolt-damned-statistics-and-climate-change-41323
http://grogsgamut.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/andrew-bolt-trends-towards-dodgy-graphs.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998-intermediate.htm
Original Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NDfwkr8hig
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Misunderstanding of probability
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Sally Clark wrongful conviction
From a Ted Talk by Peter Donnelly. http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_donnelly_shows_how_stats_fool_juries#
Background - Wikipedia on Sally Clark: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Clark
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Evolution and spontaneous beginning of life
From URCall.org, a community of Christians sharing their ideas about the relationship between faith and science.
Original Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-0AksTzfx0
Fred Hoyle's junkyard tornado: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkyard_tornado
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Book I’m part of the way through reading: How to not be wrong: http://www.jordanellenberg.com/how-not-to-be-wrong/
Direct download of the episode: https://archive.org/download/HH101/HH101e0008.mp3
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