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Simon Knight

'Data is a fingerprint': why you aren't as anonymous as you think online | World news |... - 0 views

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    In August 2016, the Australian government released an "anonymised" data set comprising the medical billing records, including every prescription and surgery, of 2.9 million people. Names and other identifying features were removed from the records in an effort to protect individuals' privacy, but a research team from the University of Melbourne soon discovered that it was simple to re-identify people, and learn about their entire medical history without their consent, by comparing the dataset to other publicly available information, such as reports of celebrities having babies or athletes having surgeries.
Simon Knight

Artificial intelligence will improve medical treatments - 0 views

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    Interesting article discussing how ai is being used in medical diagnoses
Simon Knight

11 questions journalists should ask about public opinion polls - 0 views

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    journalists often write about public opinion polls, which are designed to measure the public's attitudes about an issue or idea. Some of the most high-profile polls center on elections and politics. Newsrooms tend to follow these polls closely to see which candidates are ahead, who's most likely to win and what issues voters feel most strongly about. Other polls also offer insights into how people think. For example, a government agency might commission a poll to get a sense of whether local voters would support a sales tax increase to help fund school construction. Researchers frequently conduct national polls to better understand how Americans feel about public policy topics such as gun control, immigration reform and decriminalizing drug use. When covering polls, it's important for journalists to try to gauge the quality of a poll and make sure claims made about the results actually match the data collected. Sometimes, pollsters overgeneralize or exaggerate their findings. Sometimes, flaws in the way they choose participants or collect data make it tough to tell what the results really mean. Below are 11 questions we suggest journalists ask before reporting on poll results. While most of this information probably won't make it into a story or broadcast, the answers will help journalists decide how to frame a poll's findings - or whether to cover them at all.
Simon Knight

The Drum: Vaccines, medical costs, and the lock out laws - 0 views

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    Analysis of the day's news in an engaging & entertaining way. Host John Barron is joined by a panel of journalists, political & social commentators for a lively, thought-provoking discussion. #TheDrum This week includes discussion of vaccinations and the lock out laws - a great episode for aei
Simon Knight

BBC 'immensely grateful' for RSS input into new stats guidelines | StatsLife - 0 views

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    BBC guidelines on reporting statistics - excellent resource for AEI! http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/guidelines/editorialguidelines/pdfs/ReportingStatistics.pdf The BBC "accepts recommendations [...] to improve statistical training for BBC journalists and to ensure that journalists are better placed to challenge statistical claims made by people in public office...." It also has "plans to create a 'hub' for data journalism, recruit a new head of statistics and develop guidance based on 'guidelines from, for example, the Royal Statistical Society and others'."
Simon Knight

Data journalism's AI opportunity: the 3 different types of machine learning & how they ... - 0 views

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    some examples of how the 3 types of machine learning - supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement - have already been used for journalistic purposes, and using those to explain what those are along the way. Examples include: supervised learning to investigate doctors and sex abuse; unsurprivsed learning to identify motifs in Wes Anderson films; reinforcement learning to create a rock-paper-scissors that can beat you...
Simon Knight

Why the Trump Team's Economic Promises Will Be Hard to Execute - The New York Times - 0 views

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    Argument: Because deductions (the amount of income you can claim is not-taxable) will be reduced, even though the tax rate will go down, the richest will not in fact see an absolute reduction in tax paid. Counterargument - looking at the data, this is in fact not the case...
Simon Knight

We say 'nuts' to news release claiming nuts cut risk of many diseases - HealthNewsRevie... - 0 views

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    Discusses a recent paper and press-release (a short summary circulated to the media by the people involved. In research, this is generally a summary of the paper often published by the university or organisation that has conducted the research). Do you think starting to eat nuts is likely to decrease your risk of heart disease? What other behaviours or characteristics do you think nut-eating might be associated with? Would any of them also be related to health factors?
Simon Knight

Sugar: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - YouTube - 0 views

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    Lots of quantitative information in this video about the impact of sugar on health in the US. Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social/health issue.
Simon Knight

Whose word should you respect in any debate on science? - 0 views

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    The argument is simple, and goes a bit like this. Science does not work by appeal to authority, but rather by the acquisition of experimentally verifiable evidence. Appeals to scientific bodies are appeals to authority, so should be rejected. ...If legitimate authorities are not to be consulted, presumably there is no point in having scientists around at all, as each person would need to verify any claim on their own terms and with their own resources. That would mean a speedy decline into very dark times indeed.
Simon Knight

Wage Gap: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - YouTube - 0 views

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    John Oliver explores America's wage gap between men and women and proposes a possible solution. Note: Solution proposed is 100% sarcastic. Think about the arguments being made and how they shift - e.g. the claim that 4% is "basically no wage gap" as a way to indicate a gap isn't in fact a problem. Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social issue
Simon Knight

A comprehensive review of research into misinformation - 0 views

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    An excellent resource that links to the 'debunking handbook' - outlining ways to combat misinformation and misconceptions.
Simon Knight

Association ≠ Causation reminder on 'racket sports reduce risk of death' stor... - 0 views

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    Another example of news coverage over-stating the causal relationship between two things that research has demonstrated have some *association*. Good discussion of the particular headlines.
Simon Knight

How liars create the illusion of truth - Mind Hacks - 0 views

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    Repetition makes a fact seem more true, regardless of whether it is or not. Understanding this effect can help you avoid falling for propaganda, says psychologist Tom Stafford.
Simon Knight

Sold on cosy charm of seaside paradise | Perth Now - 0 views

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    This is an example of imprecise communication - it's right to talk about percentage increase (rather than percentage point change) but it isn't clear what the baseline was which makes it a bit confusing (475,000/120*100 will give you the median price 3 months ago of 395833.33). Note the use of the median rather than the mean - remember why that's a sensible idea in this context! Home prices have risen by more than 20 per cent to a $475,000 median. The change in median price over the past year was up by 26.7 per cent. And compared to three years ago Cremorne prices have grown by almost 40 per cent. Look back five years and prices have increased by a mighty 70 per cent, the report revealed.
Simon Knight

More or Less: Behind the stats (podcast) - 0 views

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    A podcast series that fact checks and discusses statistical claims...they're short (10 minute) episodes, and normally pretty interesting! (you just have to get over the British accent) This episode: Does the world really spend three times as much on ice cream than on humanitarian aid?
Simon Knight

Prepare for reanimation of the zombie myth 'no global warming since 2016' | Dana Nuccit... - 0 views

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    Climate deniers have been peddling the myth 'no warming since [insert date]' for over a decade. It's a popular myth among those who benefit from maintaining the status quo because if the problem doesn't exist, obviously there's no need for action to solve it. And it's an incredibly easy argument that can be made at any time, using the telltale technique of climate denial known as cherry picking.
Simon Knight

Beyond The Lab: It's All A Conspiracy - 0 views

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    Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory. After all, who doesn't sometimes feel like the world we know is secretly being run by a race of human-reptile hybrids? Most of us don't take this kind of thing seriously.Most of us think we'd never fall for a conspiracy theory, but as it turns out, there just might be a little guy wearing a tinfoil hat inside all of us.
Simon Knight

BBC Radio podcast: Nothing but the truth - 0 views

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    Nothing but the truth: Are we really living in a post-truth world? It has been an extraordinary year for the concept of veracity. Brexit. Trump. Experts have taken a beating, facts have apparently taken second place to emotion and feeling. And what about truth? It seems like fewer and fewer people, whether voters or politicians, care what's true anymore. Step forward the Oxford English Dictionary's word of 2016: "post-truth". Is this just shorthand to help liberals make sense of a world they don't like? Or does it mark something more meaningful? Are we really no longer interested in truth or is our toxic political climate clouding our ability to agree on what the facts are? In a series of special programmes as 2017 begins, Radio 4 examines inflection points in the world around us. In the first programme, Jo Fidgen explores how our brains process facts when they become polluted by politics. Producer: Gemma Newby
Simon Knight

When doing data reporting, look at the raw numbers, not just at percentages -and write ... - 0 views

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    A headline in The New York Times today reads "In the Shopping Cart of a Food Stamp Household: Lots of Soda." Is it true? The story itself provides hints that the headline is misleading, and likely to damage the image of the SNAP program and its beneficiaries. This is dangerous, considering that many readers look at clickbaity headlines, like the NYTimes one, but don't read stories. SNAP households aren't different than the rest of households. Most Americans buy and drink way too much soda and, as a result, obesity and Type II diabetes have reached epidemic levels. The story says that households that receive food stamps spend 9.3% of their grocery budget on soft drinks, while families in general spend 7.1%. This is one of those cases when reporting just percentages, and not taking into account other variables, such as total spending in groceries, sounds fishy.
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