Broadband Politics » Weird

Numb3rs botches Simpson’s Paradox

Richard Bennett — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 04:56:15 +0000

If you watch Numb3rs on CBS, you’ll have noticed a rather bizarre discussion last night of Simpson’s Paradox, which was alleged to say that combing two series of numbers into a single series can change their order (it doesn’t really say that, but that’s beside the point.) The example given was David Justice’s and Derek Jeter’s batting averages in 1995 and 1997. In each year, Justice had a better average than Jeter, but for the total of the two years, Jeter was alleged to have had a better average. It’s not hard to figure out how this could be true, but it wasn’t. The actual numbers for those years are these:

          Justice  H/AB     Jeter    H/AB
          -------           -----
1995       .253   104/411   .250     12/48
1997       .329   163/495   .291   190/654
==========================================
Comb.      .295   267/906   .288   202/702

Justice’s numbers, Jeter’s numbers

If Jeter had hit better in 1997, much closer to Justice’s average, it would have been true because Jeter very few at bats in 1995 and many more at bats in 1997 than Justice. For some bizarre reason, the show used fictitious numbers that didn’t even add up, alleging that Justice hit .321 and .329 for a combined average of .298.

How a show that’s supposed to be so math-oriented can screw up arithmetic so badly would be a a mystery if it weren’t for the fact that mathematicians are notoriously bad at basic arithmetic.

H/T Amnesia, who also got it wrong.

UPDATE: Aha! Reader Brian Thomas explains it all. See comments.

Michael Savage doesn’t like Palin

Richard Bennett — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 21:37:32 +0000

Nobody gives better rant than Michael Savage.

Fair and balanced.

UK government’s viral video

Richard Bennett — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:18:16 +0000

If you don’t know who Jeremy Clarkson is, or don’t have a sense of humor, you won’t get this, so go read The Guardian:

Downing Street always posts responses to petitions and normally the replies to the jokey ones are pretty terse. But last night, in response to the Clarkson request, it put up this.

Okay, it’s not quite Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. But I thought it hit the right note. It’s already had 40,000 hits and at LabourHome someone has praised it as “Gordon Brown’s first truly viral video”.

Right wing blogs in the UK are not amused, sadly, but it’s very au courant and Web 2.0 and all.

The People’s Republic of Conformity

Richard Bennett — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:32:25 +0000

The first thing to annoy me about the Beijing Olympics is China’s evident cheating in girls’ gymnasitcs, where they’ve flouted the minimum age standard by making false passports for a couple of children. If Chinese gymnasts He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan are 15 1/2 years old, I’ll buy them each a Cadillac. Seeing them in Hi-Def makes me doubt these little tykes are a day over 14, actually. But nobody can make any sort of official protest until the games are over and they’re safely out of the country, for fear of judging reprisals or worse.

One thing that’s not in doubt is China’s history of cheating by lying about the ages of their female gymnasts:

Yang Yun of China won individual and team bronze medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and later said in an interview on state-run television that she had been 14 at the time of those Games. A Hunan Province sports administration report also said later that she had been 14 when she competed in Sydney.

Bela Karolyi, who coached Retton of the United States and Nadia Comaneci of Romania to their Olympic gold-medal triumphs, said the problem of under-age gymnasts had been around for years. Age is an easy thing to alter in an authoritarian country, he said, because the government has such strict control of official paperwork.

It’s sad that the government of China abuses these poor children. And desperate, because they’re not fooling anybody.

These Olympics were supposed to be China’s bid to show itself to the world in a favorable light, but so far we have an all-robot opening ceremony, a murdered tourist, a bizarre recruitment program that pumps professional athletes into junk sports like air rifle, girls’ weight-lifting and synchronized diving, and blatant cheating in the marquee events. China comes of as a deranged lunatic, obsessed with winning and lacking in both grace and the capacity for self-analysis; a Bridezilla.

In short, China is looking at a public relations nightmare. But that might be good in the long run, if it prompts some serious self-analysis.

My pet goats

Richard Bennett — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:42:39 +0000

Wary of flying third world airlines? You shouldn’t be scared of Nepal Airlines, where they’re willing to make any sacrifice:

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Officials at Nepal’s state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday.

Some frequent fliers on Air India nicknamed its flagship “Emperor Ashoka” the snarky “Emperor Asukham” (sick emperor) because it broke down all the time. Clearly, they were too stingy with the goats.

H/T Nancy Rommelman.