July 15, 2013
Stat of the Week Competition: July 13 – 19 2013
Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.
Here’s how it works:
- Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday July 19 2013.
- Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
- The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of July 13 – 19 2013 inclusive.
- Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.
Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.
The fine print:
- Judging will be conducted by the blog moderator in liaison with staff at the Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland.
- The judges’ decision will be final.
- The judges can decide not to award a prize if they do not believe a suitable statistic has been posted in the preceeding week.
- Only the first nomination of any individual example of a statistic used in the NZ media will qualify for the competition.
- Individual posts on Stats Chat are just the opinions of their authors, who can criticise anyone who they feel deserves it, but the Stat of the Week award involves the Department of Statistics more officially. For that reason, we will not award Stat of the Week for a statistic coming from anyone at the University of Auckland outside the Statistics department. You can still nominate and discuss them, but the nomination won’t be eligible for the prize.
- Employees (other than student employees) of the Statistics department at the University of Auckland are not eligible to win.
- The person posting the winning entry will receive a $20 iTunes voucher.
- The blog moderator will contact the winner via their notified email address and advise the details of the $20 iTunes voucher to that same email address.
- The competition will commence Monday 8 August 2011 and continue until cancellation is notified on the blog.
Rachel Cunliffe is the co-director of CensusAtSchool and currently consults for the Department of Statistics. Her interests include statistical literacy, social media and blogging. See all posts by Rachel Cunliffe »
Statistic: Comparison of the number of children born in and out of wedlock.
Now: children born in wedlock number 1000 more than out of wedlock.
In 2000: ‘children born to unwed parents were outnumbered by more than seven to one.’
In 1980: ‘the gap was close to 30,000’.
Source: Dominion Post
Date: 17 July 2013
No base rate.
First, the shift from numbers of children to a ratio makes it impossible for the reader to compare now with 2000.
Secondly, the number of total children changed over the whole period. The analysis should account for the change.
11 years ago
Statistic: 25 in every 1000 ex-nuptial births occur to women aged between 15 and 19.
Source: Stuff.co.nz
Date: 17/7/13
Because it is untrue. The claim is a misrepresentation of the following statistic:
25 in 1000 unmarried females aged 15-19 have an ex-nuptial birth (2011)
11 years ago
Statistic: New Zealand is the nth fattest nation – but what is n?
Source: New Zealand Herald
Date: 18 July 2013
This article by Steve Stannard and another one in the Herald last week states that New Zealand is the 12th fattest nation.
This is a surprise to me because I thought we were third.
For example http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10584289 (and many other articles) says that we are third.
But this one says that we are second http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/258349/nzers-second-fattest-after-americans-survey
Here’s one that says we are 17th http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/obesity.html
And one that says we are 7th http://news.msn.co.nz/article/976799/kiwis-7th-fattest-nation-in-world
And this one says we are 34th https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2228rank.html
I like Professor Stannard’s article because it shows the flaws of the measurements and cuts to the chase – it is more important to be physically fit than to have a low BMI.
But oh dear. NZ is one of the laziest countries http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/7312681/New-Zealand-one-of-laziest-nations. We rank as 27th laziest on a list of 122 countries.
11 years ago
Statistic: Not strictly a statistic, but, perhaps even worse given how simple it is, no one involved in producing the story seems to know what ‘random’ means.
Source: NZ Herald
Date: 21/07/13 (online)
Perhaps this level of ignorance is a bit much to be stat of the week. But given some of these actually require a modicum of intelligence to figure out, it’d be worthwhile pointing out things that are as simple as this. Maybe once the NZH can manage the basics they can work on improving their more general reporting.
11 years ago