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Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
Sep. 21st, 2006 09:10 amI was good at Statistics in High School, and at Uni.
I could usually "look" at the information and intuitively pick up what kind of data I was looking at and what was relevant.
Which is why when I see abuses of Statistics (Or even just raw data interpreted badly) I get twitchy.
Why am I bringing this up? Well, as many of you know I work in IT. One of my jobs is to keep on top of the IT literature. These days, that means I read a whole bunch of Tech websites. One of these sites, previously a world class authority, has been slowly degenerating over the last 5 years to the point where, when reading their reviews, I will often draw quite different opinions to the reviewer, merely based on their data.
An example of their incompetence, is an insistence that peak performance is more critical than average performance. They always seem surprised when the product with the best average performance outperforms the product with the best peak performance in "real world tests". C'mon! This is year 11 maths!
I do wonder where they are hiring these people from? They have no need for centralised offices, as they are submitting to a completely electronic forum. Theyhavehad the reputation to get the best gear and the best people.
I wonder what went wrong?
I could usually "look" at the information and intuitively pick up what kind of data I was looking at and what was relevant.
Which is why when I see abuses of Statistics (Or even just raw data interpreted badly) I get twitchy.
Why am I bringing this up? Well, as many of you know I work in IT. One of my jobs is to keep on top of the IT literature. These days, that means I read a whole bunch of Tech websites. One of these sites, previously a world class authority, has been slowly degenerating over the last 5 years to the point where, when reading their reviews, I will often draw quite different opinions to the reviewer, merely based on their data.
An example of their incompetence, is an insistence that peak performance is more critical than average performance. They always seem surprised when the product with the best average performance outperforms the product with the best peak performance in "real world tests". C'mon! This is year 11 maths!
I do wonder where they are hiring these people from? They have no need for centralised offices, as they are submitting to a completely electronic forum. They
I wonder what went wrong?
