"More or Less" a podcast that I like more than is normal

"Welcome to more or less the series that frees numbers from abusive situations and releases them into the community to do good work and lead happy lives" - Tim Harford

My favorite podcast at the moment is "More or Less" a podcast from the BBC dealing with the everyday use of numbers and statistics and how we should be looking at them.

Although it might sound nerdy and boring, it is in fact only nerdy. Tim Harford, author of "The Undercover Economist" has a wonderful way of making seemingly boring facts and figures very interesting and memorable.

Give it a look -Click here

Media, Statistics and the importance of putting context to the numbers

(Those of you with RSS readers need to click through on the link below)

Media, Statistics & the importance of putting context to the numbers

View more presentations from edfk.

This is a little presentation I put together after reading an article on the BBC website about statistics in the media, an area that I have unlimited complaints about. I have to admit that this is not a particularly original creation content wise, but I think I have been able to greatly improve the look and feel of the original work.

Have a look and let me know what you think

400,000 sausages

I have recently discovered a podcast that caters to my new found interest in numbers and statistics by the name of “more or less” a BBC run podcast hosted by Tim Hartford, author of “The undercover economist” (great book by the way).

One of the topics discussed in a recent podcast was the widespread hysteria surrounding the finding of high levels of Dioxins in some Irish pork which led to a recall of all Irish pork from the market. On the face of it, I suppose people were justified in being a little bit worried, after all it was Dioxins that were used to poison Ukrainian President Victor Yushenko.

Of course it was not long till the reputable newspapers such as the Sun, Mirror and Mail got out there with the respective headlines: "Toxic Irish pork is swept off shelves","Poison pork panic: Irish pigs were fed on plastic bags" and "Shoppers told: Don't eat toxic Irish pork"... Not so hard to see why people might start panicking.

However behind the scary headlines and uninformed hysteria lay a numerical truth to the situation. An analyst on the podcast commented how in order to reach the levels of Dioxin that poisoned Mr. Yushenko, an individual would have to consumer 50,000kg of tainted pork, or put is sausage terms, that would be a whopping 400,000 sausages.

So with that in mind how many contaminated sausages you would have to eat to achieve Yushenko-esque levels of poisoning? With an Irish life expectancy of 77.7 years:
400,000 divided by 77.7 divided by 365 = 14.1 dioxin contaminated sausages a day for the rest of your life.

Although the above example may be a bit unrealistic, what really would be the effect if one were to eat sausages for breakfast, lunch and dinner. A nutritionist on the podcast had his own opinions on that particular choice of diet: “The first thing I would suggest if you get your cholesterol checked” adding that “Even if you consumed that amount of pork, would there be any risk from the dioxins, in all probability the answer would be no”

So one very public health scare and more than a few damaging headlines later we are left with an Irish Pork industry that has taken a huge hit, and whose future is uncertain. Again this comes down to omission of certain facts by the media in order to make a story more than it is.

Damn Lies

Having dealt with a large amount of data in my line of work in the last while I have become more than a little bit sensitive and touchy about a few things related to the area of statistics. The above quote sums up what I am trying to get at here, being the constant hijacking of various bits of information, and presenting them in a way which, by exluding other relevant factors is completely misleading and unhelpful.

I talked about this briefly a few posts ago where I mentioned the importance of putting things in CONTEXT before judging them to be relevent/important/interesting in any way at all.

Well the nice folks at the Irish times gave me something to grind me teeth to yesterday: "Ireland ranks fourth dearest in price survey"

Now I realise what they are saying is for the most part correct, Ireland is undeniably an expensive place to live, but it is the inclusion of sentances like "a trip to the movies checks in at €8.22, down from €9.50 last year. By contrast, a cinema ticket in Lithuania costs just €3.63." which get me a little worked up.

Yes the absolute euro cost is almost three times higher, but to willingly OMIT the fact that the GDP per capita is 6 times higher in ireland ($51600 in Ireland vs $8590 in Lithania (2006 UN stats link)) renders their argument on this instance completely meaningless, seeing as going to the cinema in Lithuania, on a Lituanians wage, would take up more of the average persons income.

This example is by no means an isolated example, these "news stories" crop up all the time and all they do is serve to misinform and confuse people... Lies I tell you! Damn LIES!!!

Absolute vs Percentage - put it in context

I have been thinking about writing a piece on this for quite some time but two events I read about in the news have spurred me on to write it without delay.
People need to realise there is a difference between a absolute number and a percentage. Without being able to put either the absolute, or percentage figure into context they are effectively meaningless.

Take example one. Absolute figure without percentage for context
The Irish agency "FAS" who are involved in training, reskilling and job creation in Ireland, were lambasted in the media for spending circa €600k on "travel and entertainment". Firstly, like it or not, that is the way business is done, building relationships with organisations is an expensive activity, business class flights, fancy restaurants the whole nine yards, as unattractive as that may be its the reality of the situation. SECONDLY, Fas's budget is €1billion. In percentage terms €600k is equal to... wait for it... 0.06% of the overall budget (odd they don't quote that figure in the media)... get over it.

Example 2. Percentage without the absolute for context
Another story that really grinded my gears was the "groundbreaking news" that the UK VAT rate will be reduced by a whopping 2%. The UK media, and seemingly government seem to think that by reducing VAT by 2% this will get people spending in the same reckless way which they used to pre-financial crisis. This is just stupid, and people are obviously not thinking of this in context.
"Plasma screen T.V. - previously £999, now starting from as low as £979"
"Bottle of Champagne - previously £60, now £58.80"
... useless.

The reach of Blogs

I was checking through the stats on my google analytics report, (google analytics is really good stuff by the way) and as I looked down through the looong list of reports available I decided to give the old "Geo location" chart a check. It really does give you an idea of the global reach that a blog gives you, I can see from the chart for instance that an impressive 0.51% come from spain, a country which has....bad relations with me....obviously they are spying on me.

Lessons to be learned?

1. Blogs spread ur ideas across the world (although chances are they dont care)
2. Google analytics is great for anyone who wants detailed info on their site/blog
3. Don't go to spain

Knock, Knock, Whos there?

I love writing blogs, and I think it really is a great way of getting things out of your head and on to some sort storage before they just fade away into space, never to reappear.
I also love the way that you can spread ideas about whatever, to whoever, at any time of the day. But blogging poses my brain several problems, and I think they are probably common to many writers throughout the entire blogosphere

1. Is anyone reading this? Who? and how many?
2. How do I let people know I have great stuff to say?

The first question has been solved for me by www.sitemeter.com, this site gives you a piece of html you add to your blog, from the time you put this on your page it will show you so many details it will make you cry: the daily hits, visits, average time stayed, where they came from (google, link etc), and how they left. Picture shows how people got to my site
The second site that can show you great detail is Google Analytics. Here, you can get some pretty nifty graphs and tables of where your visitors are coming from like this one
and what the most frequently accesed content on your site is.

Until recently the material on this blog was known to only a select few and had limited exposure, but then I discovered the site "Digg", here you can post your latest story to the site and in a chosen category. Once posted here, you have huge exposure to an audience of like minded bloggers who are looking for material to read. Over the last few days my average hit count has gone from 23 to 75.

So if you want to see if people are reading, and attract more readers have a look at these sites and give them a try.