August 18, 2016

Post-truth data maps

The Herald has a story “New map compares breast sizes around the world”. They blame news.com.au as the immediate cause, but a very similar story at the Daily Mail actually links to where it got the map.  You might wonder how the data were collected (you might wonder why, too). The journalist did get as far as that:

The breast map doesn’t reveal how the cup sizes were measured, it’s fair to say tracking bra purchases per country would be an ideal – and maybe a little weird – approach.

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Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »