Critical Statistics: Seeing Beyond the Headlines
- Length: 268 pages
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- Publisher: Red Globe Press
- Publication Date: 2018-10-04
- ISBN-10: 1137609796
- ISBN-13: 9781137609793
- Sales Rank: #1349078 (See Top 100 Books)
Awarded the 2019 Most Promising New Textbook Award by the Textbook & Academic Authors Association.
This accessible and entertaining new textbook provides students with the knowledge and skills they need to understand the barrage of numbers encountered in their everyday lives and studies. Almost all the statistics in the news, on social media or in scientific reports are based on just a few core concepts, including measurement (ensuring we count the right thing), causation (determining whether one thing causes another) and sampling (using just a few people to understand a whole population). By explaining these concepts in plain language, without complex mathematics, this book prepares students to meet the statistical world head on and to begin their own quantitative research projects.
Ideal for students facing statistical research for the first time, or for anyone interested in understanding more about the numbers in the news, this textbook helps students to see beyond the headlines and behind the numbers.
Contents LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figures Tables Abbreviations Preface TOUR OF THE BOOK Headlines Boxes Summaries Terminology used in this chapter ‘Seeing Beyond the Headlines ’toolboxes Exercises Italic, Bold and Underline GUIDE TO THE WEBSITE The Critical Statistics website ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1: 99% of Statistics are made up On bullshit The world runs on numbers Sometimes contraception doesn’t work Statistics in the fake news era Don’t be part of the problem Statistics for social science students Numbers and your degree Numbers and your career 2: Where do NumbersCome From? The wires Making the news nofilter Where’s the harm? A lie can run around the world before the truth can get its boots on Summary Terminology used in this chapter Seeing beyond the headlines 1. WHICH ORGANISATION OR PERSON PRODUCED THE STATISTIC? 2. IS THE ORGANISATION/PERSON LIKELY TO HAVE AN AGENDA? 3. DOES THE JOURNALIST CHALLENGE THE STATISTIC? Exercises for Chapter 2 Exercise 1: Follow the press-release Exercise 2: Zombie statistics 3: SAMPLES, SAMPLES EVERYWHERE … It’s samples all the way down … A lot of Australians don’t believe in climate change 1.9 unemployed people for every vacancy Canadians, despite being Canadian, still sometimes kill each other Swords and dragons: not just for geeks any more Samples almost all the way down … Size matters Brexit errors Percentage points Margins of error: the maths bit Low fidelity Numbers other than percentages Bad samples Spotting biased samples Self-selected samples Scientific surveys Non-response bias Sampling beyond surveys The magic of sampling Summary Terminology used in this chapter Seeing beyond the headlines 1. HOW BIG IS THE SAMPLE? 2. WHAT IS THE RISK OF SAMPLING BIAS? 3. WHAT IS THE RISK OF NON-RESPONSE BIAS? Example Exercises for Chapter 3 Exercise 1: Is it a good sample? Exercise 2: Surveying the headlines 4: MEASURE FOR MEASURE The dark side of immigration in open, generous Sweden Define your terms Two is the loneliest number How to lie with definitions Counting is hard Is racism a thing of the past? Asking the right questions Tracking down the source of the ‘160,000’ figure Validity and reliability There’s no such thing as a perfect statistic Summary Terminology used in this chapter Seeing beyond the headlines Exercises for Chapter 4 Exercise 1 Exercise 2 5: What Does it Mean to be Average? Average man The mean doesn’t always mean what you think it means Why doesn’t everyone know this already? The median: The mean’s under-appreciated brother What is a ‘distribution’? Averages are not real The mode Summary Terminology used in this chapter Seeing beyond the headlines 1. WHAT TYPE OF AVERAGE IS BEING USED? 2. ARE THERE LIKELY TO BE LARGE OUTLIERS? 3. IS THE AUTHOR ‘ESSENTIALISING’? Example Exercises for Chapter 5 Exercise 1 Exercise 2 6: Fraction of a Man There are two kinds of data in the world What’s the point of percentages? Per (out of) cent (a hundred) Do we need a White Lives Matter? Does gun violence mean the USA is deadlier than a warzone? Percentages – backwards and forwards Risky business All about that base Likert scales Statistics aren’t real Summary Terminology used in this chapter Seeing beyond the headlines 1. IS A COMPARISON BEING MADE IN TERMS OF RAW COUNTS WHEN PERCENTAGES (OR ANOTHER PROPORTION) WOULD BE MORE APPROPRIATE? 2. IS THE RIGHT PERCENTAGE BEING USED? 3. IF THE CLAIM IS ABOUT AN INCREASED OR DECREASED RISK, HAS THE BASELINE RISK BEEN PROVIDED? Examples Exercises for Chapter 6 Exercise 1 Exercise 2 7 Cause and Efect Kill or cure CSI: Causation The habits of highly successful people The drugs don’t work Postscript – fish brain ‘Have smartphones destroyed a generation?’ Establishing causation is really hard Establishing causation is not impossible Natural experiments Eliminating alternative explanations using statistics The rush to infer causation Summary Terminology used in this chapter Seeing beyond the headlines 1. IS THIS A CAUSAL CLAIM? 2. WHY MIGHT X AND Y BE ASSOCIATED? 3. WHICH EXPLANATIONS HAVE BEEN RULED OUT? WHICH EXPLANATIONSREMAIN? Example Exercises for Chapter 7 Exercise 1 Exercise 2 8 Bad Graphics Electioneering Charts as a collection of ‘visual metaphors’ A brief history lesson Bad charts: A spotter’s guide Bar charts What are they used for? Bar chart or column chart? What makes a bar chart misleading? Pie charts What are they used for? What makes a pie chart misleading? Line charts What are they used for What makes a line chart misleading? Scatter plots What are they used for? What makes a scatter plot misleading? Nonsense graphs Why have one pie when you can have six? Obama’s legacy in nine unreadable charts The worst graph in the world Summary Terminology used in this chapter Seeing beyond the headlines 1. WHAT TYPE OF CHART AM I LOOKING AT? 2. WHICH VISUAL ELEMENTS ARE CARRYING INFORMATION? 3. WHAT QUANTITY DOES EACH VISUAL ELEMENT REPRESENT, AND HOW? 4. DOES THE CHART ACCURATELY CONVEY THE STORY OF THE DATA? Examples Exercises for Chapter 8 Exercise 1a Exercise 1b Exercise 1c Exercise 2 9: Context is Everything ‘Is that a big number?’ Four questions ‘There is no epidemic of police killing black people … ’ Is the author trying to say that the number is big, or that it is small? What contextual information does the author include? What potentially relevant information does the author exclude? Does the excluded information make the number seem bigger or smaller? Emotive statistics American carnage Is the story trying to say that the number is big, or that it is small? What contextual information does the author include? What potentially relevant information does the author exclude? Does the excluded information make the number seem bigger or smaller? The lens of history Competing contexts: What is the Queen of England worth? What contextual information does the author include? What potentially relevant information does the author exclude? Does the excluded information make the number seem bigger or smaller? Camera tricks Summary Seeing beyond the headlines Exercises for Chapter 9 Exercise 1 Exercise 2 10: Do it Yourself The gender pay gap The data How big is the gender pay gap overall? Equal pay for equal work? Fun with definitions Is the gender pay gap caused by sexism? It’s not about sexism It is about sexism The verdict Writing up the results IMRaD How to lie with true statistics Cherry-picking How to use statistics to tell the truth Summary Terminology used in this chapter Seeing beyond the headlines 1. HAVE YOU BEEN HONEST WITH YOURSELF ABOUT THE RESULT YOU WANT? 2. HAVE YOUR METHODOLOGICAL DECISIONS BEEN SELF-SERVING? 3. HAVE YOU TRIED TO PROVE YOURSELF WRONG? Example Exercises for Chapter 10 Seeing beyond the headlines 1. IS THE NUMBER AN ESTIMATE BASED ON A SAMPLE? 2. WHAT IS BEING MEASURED? 3. IS THE NUMBER AN AVERAGE? 4. IS THE NUMBER A RAW COUNT? 5. IS THE NUMBER A PERCENTAGE? 6. IS THE NUMBER A RISK? 7. IS A CAUSAL CLAIM BEING MADE? 8. ARE NUMBERS BEING PRESENTED IN THE FORM OF A GRAPH? 9. IN WHAT CONTEXT HAS THE NUMBER BEEN PLACED? 10. IS THIS A NUMBER YOU HAVE PRODUCED YOURSELF? NOTES Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Index
Donate to keep this site alive
1. Disable the AdBlock plugin. Otherwise, you may not get any links.
2. Solve the CAPTCHA.
3. Click download link.
4. Lead to download server to download.