Researchers need to be able to draw conclusions based on previously published studies in their field. A new aggregation method synthesizes prior findings and may help reveal more of the big picture.
Collecting the data comes first, but then you have to analyze the data.
Cameron Neylon
Rand Wilcox, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Any field that collects and analyzes data relies on statistical techniques to make sense of it all. Modern, more accurate methods should supplant the old ways… but in many cases, they haven’t yet.
Will he or won’t he hit the bullseye? Using Bayes’ Theorem, your prediction will be based on how the current match is going - and how he’s played in the past.
Flickr/Marjan Lazarevski
Sea otters had been absent from this Alaskan national park for at least 250 years. By marrying math and statistics, scientists map this animal’s successful comeback.
A suitable disposition helps the medicine go down.
Cropped from charlesonflickr/flickr
Just about everyone wants medical care, but some want it a lot more. We discovered a personality trait that explains why it’s hard to improve health care outcomes and costs.
Statistics and probability can sometimes yield mind bending results.
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Sometimes statistics and probability can produce unexpected or counter-intuitive results. If we’re hoping to use numbers to make good decisions, we should be wary of the traps.
How risky is it to swim?
Christine Cabalo/Wikimedia
We naturally overestimate the risk of rare events, like shark attacks or terrorism. But there are things you can do to think more rationally about the real risk.
For 30 years, sports fans have been told to forget about streaks because the ‘hot hand’ is a fallacy. But a reanalysis says not so fast: Statistics show players really are in the zone sometimes.
A perfect night out involves a lot of chance.
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Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said he thought that Victorians have never felt more unsafe, and that burglaries, assaults and murders are rising year-on-year. Is he right?
Hans Rosling: presenter of the facts.
Neil Fantom/flickr
Professor, Future Fellow and Head of Statistics at UNSW, and a Deputy Director of the Australian Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers (ACEMS), UNSW Sydney