Stats + Stories

The information age has been rife with more misinformation than any other time in human history. With the dissemination and spread of fakes news is at an all-time high, can people be trained to spot and pre-bunk misinformation and fake news. That’s what we’re here to learn about on today’s episode of Stats and Short Stories with guest Sander van der Linden. Sander van der Linden is Professor of So...

Social media are complicated. With some research suggesting they're important spaces for digital community building and other scholars pointing out how social media can serve to actually disconnect people from one another. A growing concern among both academics in the public is the ways in which misinformation and conspiracies move through social media networks. That is the focus of this episode o...

There's a lot of conversation happening about the ethical uses of data and statistics how much weight should we put on numbers at all? How thoroughly should we investigate the methodologies used to create them? And who has access to the data? A special issue of chance focuses on statistics and data science for good and that is the topic of this episode of Stats and Stories with guests Caitlin Augu...

The costumes are ready and the annual opportunity to go out and harass your neighbors to get candy is once again upon us. Yes, it's time for Halloween. And along with Halloween comes the worry, the concern the fear that in fact, someone will be poisoning my kid’s candy. This is something that has lived with us for decades and we have someone today that will help us investigate this mystery on this...

With the ubiquity of technology in our lives have come concerns over privacy, security, and surveillance. These are particularly potent in relation to what's come to be called Big Data. Navigating the complicated terrain is a constant conversation in some sectors of the tech industry, as well as academia. And it's the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with Christoph Kurz. Kurtz is a postd...

The issue of income inequality is one Americans continually wrestle with the COVID 19 pandemic bringing to light how housing, health, and general wellbeing are impacted by the unequal distribution of wealth. Income inequality in the United States is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Joseph Gastwirth. Dr. Gastwirth is a Professor of Statistics and Economics at George Washing...

The health of the world's oceans is a growing concern but measuring ocean health is a complicated undertaking. Some people studying the issue focus on pollution, while others look at the health of corals or marine mammals. One project attempts to take a comprehensive picture of the health of oceans in order to provide information about Oceanic vital signs to stakeholders. The Ocean Health Index is...

The COVID pandemic put many Sports on hold during 2020, but with the industry roaring back with the 2021 Summer Olympics as well as World Cup qualifier matches sports, and sports statistics, are back. Which is the perfect timing for the unveiling of the Royal Statistical Society's 2021 Sports Statistic of the Year. Robert Mastrodomenico is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society as well as owner...

Newsrooms all over the world are embracing data journalism – looking for unique and thoughtful ways to use data to tell stories about their communities. But is every newsroom handling data as carefully as it should be? What safeguards are in place ensure journalists are using data in ethical ways? That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Irineo Cabreros. Cabreros (@cabreros...

At Stats+Stories we're lucky to have listeners who put up with John's bad jokes and our general shenanigans. In fact, you've listened to 199 discussions of the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics. To mark our 100th episode we asked you to submit statistical headlines and a haiku won. For 200 we took to Twitter using the #MemeMedianMode hashtag and this time those th...

Twitter can be cacophonous at times – one a given day, serious analysis of the situation in Afghanistan, news stories about climate change, and Parry Gripp’s Music for Cat Piano Volume 1 can all compete for a user’s attention. This has only become more clear during the COVID 19 pandemic as it seems almost everyone is tweeting about the disease, with varying levels of expertise. However, there have...

The tenure track process at American universities is a grind – one shaped by the old adage to “Publish or perish.” But if a junior faculty member manages to successfully navigate the process – publishing as expected, learning to manage a classroom, participating in service – then they’re rewarded with tenure. Tenure is an almost permanent employment relationship at universities that’s designed to...

Talking about statistics with my journalism colleagues is the basis of what brings this show together. But speaking about, and communicating statistical work with journalists, and understanding our interdisciplinary relationship in the era of fake news and misinformation is more important than ever. That's the focus of this week’s episode of Stats and Short Stories with guest Kevin McConway. Kevin...

Being able to read and write is necessary to be successful in work, at home, and in civic life. Do parallel skills associated with critical reasoning from numbers and data carry similar weight? What do you need to know to be an informed consumer of numeric information, and to use such information? That's the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Iddo Gal. Iddo Gal is an Associate Profe...

In honor of this year's Joint Statistical Meetings, this week's episode is a repost of a conversation John Bailer and Brain Tarran, of Significance Magazine, had at JSM 2019 about communicating statistical information at a large-scale professional event. John Bailer is “the stats guy” and co-creator of Stats+Stories. He is also a University Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of St...

Communicating statistics effectively can be a difficult task it can sometimes be hard to know how much information someone needs in order to understand a particular set of numbers. Jargon can be another stumbling block to clearly communicating what a statistical finding means. Communicating stats clearly is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Kevin McConway Kevin McConway is...

About 20 years ago, most people would have been unfamiliar with the term crowdfunding. Now, when it comes to the arts, you can crowdfund anything from comic books to Mystery Science Theater 3 Thousand to musical compositions. What it takes to successfully crowdfund a rock project is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guests Moinak Bhaduri, Dominique Haughton and Piaomu Liu. Moinak...

Our lives are framed by numbers tracking our performance in school, our financial health, and our physical and emotional wellbeing. While this information can help us figure out what we might do to improve a situation, it’s only part of the statistical story. There’s other information, other data, that might be useful as well. The importance of linking data is the focus of this episode of Stats an...

Over the course of the last year, statistics have framed our lives in very obvious ways. From COVID cases to unemployment rates, stats have helped us understand what’s happening in the wider world. As we contemplate how to “build back better” in the aftermath of the pandemic, official statistics could help guide our way, at least, that’s what the authors of a recent Significance Magazine article t...

For years now, the utility of the P-value in scientific and statistical research has been under scrutiny – the debate shaped by concerns about the seeming over-reliance on p-values to decide what’s worth publishing or what’s worth pursuing. In 2016 the American Statistical Association released a statement on P-values, meant to remind readers that, “The P-values was never intended to be a substitut...

Every two years the International Prize in Statistics is given out to recognize an individual or team for major contributions to the field of statistics particularly those that have practical applications or which lead to breakthroughs in other disciplines. The winner is chosen in a collaboration between the American Statistical Association, the Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, the Interna...

The universe seems unbelievably vast, a sky filled with countless stars and worlds. Well, maybe not so countless as there’s a whole field devoted to crunching the numbers associated with an ever-expanding universe. Astrostatistics is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories Jessi Cisewski-Kehe is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. H...

Enter with your meme for a chance to appear on the show. All entries are submitted through Twitter through the official Stats+Stories account (https://twitter.com/statsandstories) by July 10th for entry.

Where are the best locations for food pantries? What are the patterns and use of a crisis call center? How can services be improved for the senior population of Wahtenaw County in Michigan? These questions share a common denominator, they represent data and analysis needs of community service organizations. Statistics in the service of the community is the focus of this episode of Stats and Storie...

Big data, though not new, is often talked about as though it is. It’s become something of a buzzword associated with everything from politics to record sales to epidemiology. But, not all big data is created the same – some of it might not even be that big at all. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Xiao-Li Meng Xiao-Li Meng is the Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Stat...