July 3, 2018
Briefly
- False positives: people who think they are allergic to penicillin (but aren’t, or aren’t anymore) are at higher risk of getting nasty antibiotic-resistant infections.
- RadioNZ interview with the new Chief Science Advisor, Juliet Gerrard. Also, see the official chief sciencely instagram
- As I point out each year, the Q&A list for the NZ Garden Bird survey has some well-written, simple principles of research design
- There’s a story Americans vote Taco Bell as the ‘Best Mexican Restaurant of 2018’. Of course it’s not true — and it’s a good example of where voting isn’t going to work. Most of the good Mexican restaurants in the US will be unknown outside their local area, and any with nationwide recognition will have to be large chains. The true story is that Taco Bell came top in ‘Brand Equity’ in the Harris poll, which basically means lots of people have heard of it and would be willing to eat there.
- Why People Make Bad Charts (and What to Do When it Happens) from Flowing Data
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 »