Statisticians break down March Madness brackets (and rule things in general)
Before the first round of NCAA basketball playoffs a number of pundits favored my Minnesota team to upset UCLA—one of the commentators before the broadcast last night went so far as to say they were a “lock”. Now I believe it. (They won.) However, I am doubtful they can beat Florida Sunday—gophers just do not stand a chance against gators. For a more reasoned breakdown on the odds for Sunday and beyond, see this bracket filled out superstar statistician Nate Silver for the New York Times.
People who can crunch data like Silver are in big demand these days according to Wall Street Journal Numbers Guy Carl Bialik in his column on March 2. The jobs site icrunchdata (very descriptive!) posted 28,305 openings for jobs in statistics and the like last month—up from 16,500 openings three years ago (I love data like this!).
It seems that number-herding nerds now rule, but there is a catch according to Dan Thorpe, senior director for analytics at Wal-Mart. He says that “the bulk of the people coming out [with statistics degrees] are technically competent but they’re missing the consultative and the soft skills, everything else they need to be successful.” So, which to do you prefer—good math skills (and lots of money) or an attractive personality (and many friends)? My advice is to aim for some of both.
Minnesota the “1st Fastest Warming State” — Whoo hoo!
Posted by mark in Uncategorized on March 15, 2013
Check out this graphic by Climate Central. It shows Minnesota being the leader for winter warming from 1970 to 2012! Unfortunately, as usual, we do not do well when at the top and so a great deal of snow fell this winter and more is forecast for next week.
Given the equinox does not come until March 20 at 11:02 GMT, I remain hopeful for Spring. I am invested in warmer weather having bought tickets to opening day for the Minnesota Twins on April 1. Perhaps that was a bit foolish, but at least I will fit in with the theme for this day. Also, I predict that our baseball team will make it to the playoffs. Mark my words.
Does a new ballpark lead to more wins for baseball teams?
Winter retains its grip up here in Minnesota at this time of the year, but the days are getting longer and the Twins are in camp down in Florida, so Spring fever is building. I can’t wait to get out to a game at Target Field with the sun shining and our nine flagging down fly balls and bashing them out of the park.
It will be interesting to see if the bloom comes off the rose of our new stadium now that our home team has stunk up the place for two years running. However, Minnesotans are so crazy to get outdoors after being stuck indoors for half the year that they may not care that their club has regressed to its mediocre mean.
According to this article in the latest Chance magazine new stadiums do not make teams statistically more competitive. Yes, teams do increase payroll in conjunction with the greater revenues coming from flocks of fans that come with their new digs. But this drops off in a year or two and things go back to the way they were.
I am not surprised. Nevertheless, I am positive that the Twins will come around this year and make it to the playoffs. That is the nature of a true baseball fan—hopeless optimism.
Slugging down beer—which brew preferred by shell-less terrestrial gastropods
Inspired by my new web-based “Launch Pad” to the book DOE Simplified, PhD biologist Gaston Habets put his new statistical know-how to good use in his own backyard out in California by offering a choice of beer to the slugs eating up his garden.
Being a native of a cold clime I’d no idea how troublesome slugs could be until some years ago when my cousin in the Bay Area had me out to her place for dinner and asked me to help her gather up greens from the garden. The size of the slugs surprised me: The Pacific banana slug approaches a foot in length according to this New York Times science blog.
Given their gentle nature and top speed of 0.0055 miles per hour, one need not fear these slimy creatures. The only thing is that they eat up the gardens. So that sets the stage for the humane solution of sidetracking slugs with a bowl of beer. But which brew do they prefer? Gaston did his bit for the sake of garden science by setting out eight trays at specific locations around the vegetables and randomly pouring either Bud light or alcohol-free O’Doul’s. He repeated this experiment over four nights in a way that blocked out any differences in the nocturnal feedings.* The graphic shown here shows the outcome: By nearly a 3-to-1 ration slugs preferred Bud Light over the O’Doul’s. They did not get thrown off by the random location of the beer—the slugs found their favorite bars and bellied up.
*Gaston’s data showed a maximum slug count on Saturday night, but then they dropped off to a minimum on Sunday. My conclusion is that slugs party hearty. Who knew?
Slugs prefer Bud Light over O’Doul’s
P.S. It seems that slugs from coast to coast really do prefer Bud from what I see here.
Only 14 percent of biomedical results are wrong, after all–Is this comforting?
Posted by mark in science, Uncategorized on February 2, 2013
The Scientist reports here that new mathematical studies refute previous findings that most current published medical research findings are false due to small study sizes and bias. I suppose–considering the original assertion of “most” announced discoveries being wrong–we can literally live with a false positive rate of ‘only’ 14% for findings that relate ultimately to our well being. But the best advice is:
It is still important to report estimates and confidence intervals in addition to or instead of p-values when possible so that both statistical and scientific significance can be judged by readers.
– Leah R. Jager, Jeffrey T. Leek (“Empirical estimates suggest most published medical research is true”)
This baby really did explode
Posted by mark in history, Uncategorized on January 27, 2013
I’ve been blessed with another grandson, my second, who arrived just before Thanksgiving. I’ve become a bit gun-shy holding him due to his explosive colonic evacuations. Today, though, I realized that being a babysitter could be a whole lot worse. See what I mean by reading this New York Times obituary for nuclear scientist Donald Hornig.
In a small shed at the top of a 100-foot-tall steel tower deep in the New Mexico desert, Donald Hornig sat next to the world’s first atomic bomb in the late evening of July 15, 1945, reading a book of humorous essays. A storm raged, and he shuddered at each lightning flash.
Hedonic adaptation-getting back to your happy place
Posted by mark in Uncategorized, Wellness on January 4, 2013
While motoring down to a beach in southwest Florida 🙂 yesterday, I listened to this NPR interview of Sonja Lyubomirsky on her book “The Myths of Happiness”. Evidently people have a natural ‘set point’—like a thermostat for mood—that helps them withstand terrible events and be happy again. It’s called hedonic adaption.* Sadly most folks suffer the flip side of this mood regulator: They finally get what they want, such as a coveted Christmas gift, but it does not make them any happier.
There is a nifty way around this—rather than gratifying your greed, do something for someone else. It needn’t be much: Every little bit adds up to leading a happier life.
Such behavior is twice blest—good for the giver as well as the beneficiary.
“The pleasures associated with our own acts of consumption tend to be short-lived. The pleasures derived from doing something for others linger.”
– Excerpted from this 1/14/12 post on “Consumption Makes Us Sad? Science Says We Can Be Happy With Less” by Barry Schwartz of The Daily Beast.
*I dictated “hedonic adaptation blog” into my (supposedly) smart phone and it transcribed “add on a caterpillar engine block”—presumably thinking I meant to increase the horsepower in my road grader. Ha ha!
Glass-shattering interaction of factors
Posted by mark in pop, Uncategorized on December 29, 2012
Last week (12/21) the Today Show broadcasted an alarming demonstration of Pyrex glass exploding after being subjected to certain combinations of conditions. See NBC News’ detailing here . As reported in this American Ceramic Society Bulletin , some scientists believe that changes to the material (replacing borosilicate with soda lime silicate) weakened the glass. However, makers of Pyrex disagree vehemently with these conclusions—see their side of the story here.
It turns out that hot Pyrex pans set directly on a wet or cool surface, such as a granite counter-top, undergo a sudden temperature change that produces some risk of it shattering. That strikes close to home for me, having re-done our kitchen (as is the style nowadays) with granite. Fortunately, being accustomed to plastic (Formica) countertops, I always put down cloth potholders before setting down the hot Pyrex pan. The take-home message is being careful not to subject Pyrex to rapid increases or decreases in temperature. See this site for safety instructions.
PS. On a lighter note (literally: too much sun) regarding heat and silica (main constituent of sand) see this New York Times news making it official that the hottest temperature ever recorded is 134 degrees F in Death Valley. They are pyre Rex.
Correlation of price of wine with the fineness of its taste–an absurd example
Posted by mark in Consumer behavior on December 22, 2012
Behavioral Economics Professor Dan Ariely of Duke University provides an illuminating and humorous example of irrational valuation in his advice column today for Wall Street Journal. It seems that this Christmas holiday weekend may be ruined for a couple who took advantage of a buy-one-get-one-free (BOGO) sale on a fine wine. Actually they paid $17 for one bottle and a nickel ($0.05) for the other. They asked Professor Ariely to help them escape a terrible dilemma: For the holiday party would it be OK to bring the cheap wine? Ha ha!
I hope that for the coming year all of you readers of StatsMadeEasy do not get hung up spurious issues like this relating to correlation and causation or any other statistical kerfuffles. Happy Holidays and New Year!
PS. I leave you with this toast to 2013–a picture taken last week during my tour of a winery in the Colchagua Valley south of Santiago, Chile. Cheers!
Strange times: Ice forming in unlikely places and melting where it shouldn’t
Posted by mark in Nature, Uncategorized on December 9, 2012
My flight yesterday from Minneapolis to Santiago got held up for de-icing. Being so near to the year-end solstice, the change in seasons from Minnesota to Chile could not be more dramatic—a swing of 45 degrees in solar angle relative to the ecliptic plan. So it’s out of snow (storming today back home) and into 80+ degrees and pure sun. : )
Things are wackier than I’d thought in regard to where one might expect to find ice nowadays. For example, who would have thought that water could freeze on Mercury? But that’s what NASA recently reported based on a shout out from their spacecraft Messenger, which detected polar hydrogen via neutron spectroscopy. See the details here. I enjoyed the quip by Sean C. Solomon, the principal investigator for Messenger, about there being enough ice to encase Washington, D.C., in a frozen block two and a half miles deep.* That might be what’s needed to cool down all the rhetoric about the fiscal cliff. 😉
Meanwhile the worries about the warming climate melting Earth’s icecaps just keep coming on. Concerned about contrails contributing to the greenhouse effect, the Washington Post is now demanding the Santa’s sleigh be grounded. Read this 12/4/12 blog and weep. : (
*On Closest Planet to the Sun, NASA Finds Lots of Ice, 11/29/12