UTS-AEI

This is a really great example of using a visualisation to communicate a quantitative fact check. This claim is a good case for doing a basic plausibility check, and thinking about what numeric information you'd need to know to understand the claim (e.g., how many people are deported now (what's the baseline), and what are the estimates for the maximum number of unauthorized immigrants in the country?).

Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social/health issue.

Using comedy/performance to make a point about statistics regarding a social/health issue.

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.

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

Last Week Tonight clip: John Oliver hosts a mathematically representative climate change debate, with the help of special guest Bill Nye the Science Guy, of course. Using performence & comedy to communicate a scientific point

"we pushed back against a misleading news release from Yale University that ran with the headline, "Yale researchers discover underlying cause of myeloma." The release claimed that the researchers identified "what causes a third of all myelomas," describing a faulty immune system response to compounds known as lysolipids as the culprit. But that characterization was wrong. First off, the research only demonstrated an association between lysolipids and this cancer - they didn't prove that one caused the other. And far from applying to a third of myeloma patients, the findings applied only to a tiny group of patients "

The importance of understanding #fallacies for helping to understand why people deny scientific explanations.

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?

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?

9 helpful tips to stop yourself from sharing false information.

hen the AP United States history students at Aragon High School in San Mateo California, scanned the professionally designed pages of www.minimumwage.com, most concluded that it was a solid, unbiased source of facts and analysis. They noted the menu of research reports, graphics and videos, and the "About" page describing the site as a project of a "nonprofit research organization" called the Employment Policies Institute. But then their teacher, Will Colglazier, demonstrated how a couple more exploratory clicks-critically, beyond the site itself-revealed that the Employment Policies Institute is considered by the Center for Media and Democracy to be a front group created by lobbyists for the restaurant and hotel industries. "I have some bright students, and a lot of them felt chagrined that they weren't able to deduce this," said Colglazier, who videotaped the episode last January. "They got duped."

How are your intuitions shaped by the immediate world around you? The importance of evidence over anecdote and considering the bigger picture! If it's hot outside, you're more likely to believe in climate change. The public perception of climate change is shaped by the weather that people experience, according to a study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

Going beyond a surface level analysis of the statistics to delve deeper into the story A similar contrast can be seen in the census data on the religiosity of Australians. The census asks participants to state their religion. The answers reveal that while on the one hand Australians are becoming less religious, on the other they are becoming more religiously diverse. In the 2011 census, 68.3% of people identified themselves as having a religion. This was down from 69.5% in 2006. However, the census does not tell the whole story. It cannot tell us how often a person attends a church, mosque, synagogue or temple. It cannot tell us how often a person prays or performs some other religious ritual.

How does the "smashed avo" hook shape this discussion? Look at how statistics are used in this report to inform the debate and critique a narrow perspective. There's no doubt there are differences between the experiences and opportunities of young people compared to their parents. But when you enter the smashed avocado debate of baby boomers versus millennials, you overlook the inequality between members of the same generation. This also misses other ways inequality is perpetuated, such as through the intergenerational transfer of wealth. It's uncomfortable for many to admit but Australia is a hugely unequal society, both in terms of incomes and wealth. Australian households in the top 20% account for half of the income stream, that's about 12 times more than the bottom 20%. At the far ends of the distribution, the average weekly after tax income of the top 5% is 13 times that of the bottom 5%. But this isn't just an artefact of wealth in different generations. There are multiple ways we can glean this, most notably in relation to poverty.

A great visualisation of the income distribution (using a frequency distribution) to illustrate the change over time.

Christopher Pyne has overstated how well Australia is performing on jobs and growth compared to other major economies. IMF estimates for 2016 on GDP growth had put Australia ahead of the G7 countries. But the latest available data - which are actual figures as of the third quarter of 2016, not estimates - show that Australia's cumulative growth in 2016 so far is at the level of the G7 and not higher. So Australia is performing in line with the G7 and slightly worse than the OECD average.

What does what people search for tell us about? Did you know Google publishes its most searched for queries? With 2017 just around the corner, Google is continuing its yearly tradition of its "year in search results," a run down of the most frequently Googled sensation throughout 2016.

How do we measure illegal activity? How do we estimate the size of the 'black economy'? Some nice visualisations in this report. The Australian government has announced a taskforce to "crack down on the black economy", with a panel reportedly to consider measures such as removing the $100 note from circulation and limiting cash transactions above a certain limit. One estimate of the underground economy from 1999, which only considered cash transactions and excluded illegal activities, put the size of the underground economy at around 15% of gross domestic product. However, a more recent estimate by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 2013, which encompassed proceeds from illegal activities as well as other areas, estimated the size to be far smaller, at only 2.1% of GDP.

"Significant Digits" is a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news by fivethirtyeight.com - e.g. in this issue 29 percent Percentage of Americans who regularly work weekends. Another 27 percent regularly work between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Maybe useful for understanding how important quantitative information is in the world around us.