Statistics is the science of interpreting data, including the techniques for how best to design experiments and how to interpret their results.
3
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111 views
Are Orthodox Jewish women suffering from a Shidduch (Marriage) Crisis?
There is a popular opinion (they also appear in other sources in the Jewish Blogosphere) in the Orthodox Jewish world that there is such a thing nowadays as a "Shidduch [Marriage] Crisis".
The idea ...
1
vote
2answers
212 views
Is there evidence that competition between hospitals creates better quality and lower cost healthcare?
There is a debate in England, as the government is changing the way the NHS works, to introduce more competition.
The NHS will still operate as a single payer, covering the whole population: but ...
12
votes
4answers
717 views
Is it accurate to say that 97% of experts agree that global warming is anthropogenic?
A recent spate of newspaper headlines reported that 97% of scientists agreed with the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The UK's Daily telegraph reported:
A review of 12,000 scientific ...
5
votes
1answer
546 views
Are guns in the USA used 80 time more often to protect life than to take it?
I came across this infographic recently: http://americangunfacts.com/
I wonder how truthful it really is? Even if the numbers presented are correct, it seems that they present it in a way that is not ...
5
votes
1answer
350 views
Are manual transmission cars stolen less?
There is a decent amount of anecdotal evidence about manual transmissions being a good anti-theft device - but are there any statistics?
Here's a statistic-less article from MSN.com
It's folk ...
3
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0answers
121 views
Does prison work reduce recidivism?
I'm having difficulty finding statistics comparing the recidivism rates of regular prisoners and the ones that worked while serving the sentence. I can't remember where but I've read that "specialists ...
10
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2answers
1k views
Is the value of a tree $193,250?
There is a sign, at the Eden Nature Park & Resort in City of Davao, Philippines, that says this:
Of concern to all!
A tree is worth $193,250
According to Professor T.M.Das of the
...
-4
votes
2answers
198 views
x percent of people own y percent of the wealth
It is very common in infographics such as the following:
to make a point about wealth inequality by showing a disproportionate amount of
money owned by the richest people.
I am slightly skeptical ...
8
votes
3answers
402 views
is it safe to assume birth control pills never fail? [closed]
I think that birth-control pills technically have a failure rate of almost zero but not quite zero.
But assuming birth-control pills are taken on-schedule, as prescribed, is it safe to assume they ...
2
votes
0answers
106 views
Did Lewandowsky use dodgy data in his paper showing correlation between free market and anti-science views?
In 2012 Australian psychologist Stephen Lewandowsky (and others) published a paper claiming to show that there was a significant correlation between beliefs in free market economics and the rejection ...
17
votes
3answers
748 views
Did the National Rifle Association (NRA) block research into statistics related to gun control?
About 30,000 americans die every year from gun-related deaths (a number likely to exceed those dying from automobile-related accidents very soon if trends continue). This totals more than 300,000 ...
9
votes
0answers
311 views
In the USA, do supporters of the Republican party make more charitable donations than supporters of the Democrats?
Republicans argue that those that benefit more from capitalism and want the government to do less to help others would be more likely to give that money away.
ABC's 2020 is one source of this claim. ...
8
votes
2answers
552 views
Is the Lindy effect well supported by evidence?
The Lindy effect is the observation that, contrary to the pattern with perishable things like people, the longevity so far is a good predictor of the future longevity. In other words, technologies ...
1
vote
1answer
261 views
Are only 5% of Americans naturally blonde?
In his phenomenally thorough study of what the typical porn star looks like (see Is the typical female porn star a big-boobed blonde?) John Millward mentions in passing that:
only 5% of Americans ...
18
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0answers
271 views
Is there a “red shift” in U.S. elections — a significant shift to republican votes between polls and voting? Does this imply fraud?
This questions on Politics SE introduced me to the concept of the red shift. In short, the claim of a red shift boils down to a statistically significant difference between outcome of final exit polls ...
19
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3answers
2k views
Do married people live longer than single people?
It is a common belief that married people live longer than single people.
For example, The Telegraph reports:
Men and women who are married or in long-term relationships are more likely to ...
5
votes
0answers
188 views
Are there fewer women available at the higher end of aptitude in the sciences?
Larry Summers, got into a little trouble when at a speech in 2005 at a National Bureau of Economic Research he said:
There are three broad hypotheses about the sources of the very substantial ...
1
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1answer
313 views
Does the average European adult weigh 71kg?
The Daily Mail says that the average weight of both males and females in Europe is UN 70.8kg in this article: ...
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0answers
165 views
Does replacing sweet drinks with coffee make you less depressed?
According to a news report in The Register, people who drink coffee are substantially less at risk from depression than those who drink sweetened drinks. The article reports:
"Cutting out or down ...
9
votes
1answer
541 views
Is the judicial system biased against men?
We often hear the claim that men are treated unfairly in relation to women by the Judicial System.
One example of the claim can be found here.
The article claims that:
Women shoplifters were ...
6
votes
4answers
4k views
Does your body suffer one mutation for every 15 cigarettes you smoke?
England's department of health has launched a new, very graphic anti-smoking TV ad (see the BBC STORY). Aside from the graphic imagery it makes the specific claim that a smoker will suffer one ...
5
votes
0answers
318 views
Intelligence of different races [closed]
It is generally accepted (in larges parts of the US - I'm not sure about other places, but there are probably many others) that people of different races (where race here means skin color, as ...
12
votes
1answer
413 views
Did more than 660 High-School students die as a direct result of Football injuries?
At the end of their show (Penn & Teller Bullshit, s.07 ep.03) on violent video games, Penn & Teller claim (at the 26:10 mark):
from 1931 until 2007, 665 kids died from injuries they ...
7
votes
4answers
275 views
Do workplace smoking bans reduce the number of heart attacks?
There is a lively debate on the health impact of passive smoking (other questions on skeptics.se are here Does passive smoking kill 600,000 people every year? and here Is secondhand smoke dangerous?). ...
22
votes
1answer
4k views
How often are guns used by private citizens in self defense per year in the United States?
According to Wikipedia the numbers reported range from 65 thousand to 2.5 million. I am very skeptical of the 2.5 million figure and in fact I am even skeptical of the 65 thousand figure. This ...
5
votes
0answers
493 views
Are 1 million people a year date raped?
This article claims:
Every year, an estimated 1 million people are date raped, and many of
them are victims of date-rape drugs, potent mixtures that disrupt the
central nervous system.
I ...
10
votes
1answer
454 views
Money doesn't correlate with happiness after a certain level
I read various claims, but this HowStuffWorks article seems the most representative (bolding is all mine):
The one place that money and happiness are significantly linked is
when a person is ...
7
votes
0answers
280 views
Do peoples' names affect their choice of career?
The classic purported around the interwebs is of Dennis the Dentist or Lawrence the Lawyer - the idea that a person is likely to choose a career or place to live because it reminds them of their name. ...
3
votes
0answers
336 views
Is the Conditional Risk XKCD comic factually accurate? [closed]
I found the following comic on XKCD
Does this claim have any scientific basis or is it just a joke I didn't understand?
2
votes
0answers
21 views
Is the rate of Human Evolution Slowing down? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is human evolution slowing down?
I know that this question already exists and have read through. Is human evolution slowing down?
Mutations have to happen agreed, but ...
5
votes
0answers
113 views
Has the primary benefit of statins in reducing early deaths never been fully tested in comparative trials?
Ben Goldacre, in his sustained critique of the way the pharmaceutical industry and its regulators fall far from the standards of reliable evidence (Bad Pharma), makes an astounding claim (p193 of the ...
0
votes
0answers
128 views
Is human intelligence progressively diminishing? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicates:
Is global IQ dropping over time?
Is evolution slowing down?
"Humans are losing intellectual and emotional capabilities because we no longer need intelligence to ...
9
votes
2answers
296 views
Does passive smoking kill 600,000 people every year?
While reading David Nutt's book on the harms caused by legal and illegal drugs and how to minimise them (Drugs without the hot air), I came across a claim which reminded me of some previous questions ...
12
votes
1answer
316 views
Are annual physical examinations valuable?
It seems to be commonly accepted that having a physician do a physical exam every year is beneficial. However, others seem to have concluded otherwise, for example see the Oct 17, 2012 article in the ...
9
votes
1answer
440 views
Does freely available contraception cut the abortion rate?
A recent study at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (see report here) concluded that provision of free long-acting contraception reduced the number of abortions in its ...
8
votes
1answer
230 views
Hedge fund performance due to chance?
Is there any evidence that hedge funds (any in particular, or the industry as a whole) actually offer any expertise?
Clearly, they claim that they do (that is what management fees are for after all), ...
10
votes
2answers
822 views
Do investment managers pick stock portfolios better, on average, than monkeys throwing darts?
Many individuals believe they can make significant quantities of money by stock trading. Much of the financial services industry wants the public to believe that it can take our savings and, by the ...
0
votes
0answers
155 views
How did the number of employed go up 873K in September 2012, while there were only 114K new jobs? [closed]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, says that total non-farm employment went up 114,000, but in the the latest summary data says that there are 873,000 more employed in September than there were in ...
10
votes
1answer
2k views
Are the chances of dying on the way to get lottery tickets larger than the chance of winning?
I encountered the following claim:
The chances of you dying on the way to get your lottery tickets is greater than your chances of winning
Of course, whether is is true depends on the lottery, ...
11
votes
3answers
2k views
Do lower income workers tend to vote Republican?
It's election season in the United States and something that you tend to hear from domestic and international pundits is that:
Lower income workers tend to vote Republican...
which also tends to ...
9
votes
3answers
578 views
Do plain packs for cigarettes reduce smoking?
I heard on the news that some countries in the European Union are planning a measure that will force Tobacco companies to use a generic package for their cigarettes (for a debate on the UK proposals ...
6
votes
1answer
2k views
Has 90% of the world's data been created in the last two years?
"Big Data" is a big trending term on the internet (especially on the web sites of big companies selling data management services). For example, I came across this article while reading the Irish Times ...
8
votes
1answer
281 views
Are voter ID laws effective tools at *suppressing* voter fraud?
Recent bickering over who should require what to vote where have suggested that requiring a person bring some form of ID to the poll might help alleviate fraud. This makes important assumptions:
...
6
votes
1answer
251 views
Has the Urban Heat Island effect on the US temperature record been underestimated?
One of the early climate-skeptic arguments against the consensus view that the world is warming to a dangerous extent, was that the instrumental record of temperature was corrupted by the Urban Heat ...
11
votes
1answer
533 views
Are 100 million sharks killed by humans per year?
I've read from several sources that humans kill 11,000 sharks per hour or 100 million per year, for example :
The Humane Society of the United States, quoting Jean-Michel Cousteau
Look at what ...
5
votes
3answers
494 views
Does Gallup assume people answer honestly in their creationist vs. evolution polls?
A recent Gallup poll claims that 46% of Americans believe :
God created human beings pretty much in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so
It seems to me possible that, when asked ...
8
votes
0answers
997 views
Was there a peak in suicides associated with the release of Pokémon red and green?
My 13-year-old stepson just told me this story: When Pokémon Red and Green was first released in 1996, there were dozens or hundreds of suicides of children caused by high-frequency sounds in the ...
38
votes
2answers
4k views
Do 33% of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives?
I've seen this statistic reported on several sites (for example, Those Who Don't Build Must Burn and Want To Do Meaningful Work? Keep Reading. Literally), along with a list of other startling numbers.
...
7
votes
0answers
261 views
Are many or most people reluctant to trust shortened URLs? [closed]
Borrowing the question from the User Experience forums, The Government Computer News (GCN) claims in their article that "government Web site managers discovered that people often are reluctant to ...
4
votes
2answers
391 views
Does the time of day affect fuel economy?
One tip that I heard as a young driver was something along the following:
Try to refuel in the early morning or in the evening as the denser gas
will get you better fuel economy.
Since then I ...
