Statistical Literacy
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CINAC: Correlation is not a Cause
CINAC: Correlation is not a Cause Sue Blackmore on the one thing everyone should have in their cognitive toolkit that they don’t currently…..CINAC (Correlation is not a Cause). One reason for this lack is that CINAC can be surprisingly difficult to grasp. I learned just how difficult when teaching experimental design to nurses, physiotherapists and Continue reading
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Penile Length Leads to Little Economic Growth
Penile Length Leads to Little Economic Growth Probably not going to use this one in my Stat Lit class, but it is a shame. It’s obviously a good example why identifying probable mechanism is important. Less obviously it’s a great example of cherry picking — if you click through to the paper it is the Continue reading
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Zombie Pseudoscience: 8 Glasses a Day
For those wondering, this blog covers two main things — stuff important to instructional design, and stuff important to my statistical literacy class. Here’s something on the latter… Somewhere, somebody, probably employed by a bottled water company, said we should all get eight glasses of water eight times a day. Coffee doesn’t count, the water Continue reading
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“The literacy rate among college graduates is lower today than it was 15 or 20 year [sic] ago.”
John Stossel talks to former Tobacco Junk Science Guy Richard Vedder about education: “Do kids learn anything at Harvard? People at Harvard tell us they do. … They were bright when they entered Harvard, but do … seniors know more than freshman? The literacy rate among college graduates is lower today than it was 15 Continue reading
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Great base rate fallacy explanation
From (what else?) a debunking of one of Gladwell’s heroes: In statistics, you can’t judge the predictive oomph of anything without knowing the population prevalence of the event or condition you’re studying. Here’s a simple way to see how easy it is to fall into what they call, in the field, “base-rate neglect”: Suppose you’re Continue reading
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The Great Threat to Higher Education is Medical Costs, Not Bubbles
To be clear about my last post, there are some catastrophic economics of higher education down the pike; they just aren’t bubbles. The biggest one? Rising health costs for seniors and the disabled. As health care takes bigger and bigger chunks out of the GDP it is going to crowd out spending on a lot Continue reading
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The “Tuition Bubble” and Degree Oversupply
There’s a lot of neat stuff in Carnevale and Rose’s The Undereducated American (and if you can’t read the whole thing, the first ten or so pages are essentially a Powerpoint of the findings — they will take you all of two minutes to flip through; you have no excuse). One of my favorite pieces Continue reading
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U.S. says colleges with big tuition hikes must explain
U.S. says colleges with big tuition hikes must explain This is almost sadly funny. So there’s all these tuition hikes, particularly at state colleges. It’s out-of-control spending, right? So the DoEd is asking colleges that have the sharpest hikes to explain why they are being so profligate with money. Except, as everyone knows who actually Continue reading
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U.S. College Tuition Rises 4.6%, Beating Inflation
U.S. College Tuition Rises 4.6%, Beating Inflation It pays to read these things carefully. Tuition at private non-profit colleges increased at 4.6%, but adjusted for inflation this was a 1% increase, one of the smallest in the past 40 years. And again, these are published prices: student aid is up 7% which means this is less Continue reading
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