Posts by page views

1. Interview with a forced convert to R from Matlab
2. A first step towards R from spreadsheets
3. Plot ranges of data in R
4. A statistical review of ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ by Daniel Kahneman
5. The 3 dots construct in R
6. Translating between R and SQL: the basics
7. An R debugging example
8. R database interfaces
9. R and social media
10. On the acceptance of R
11. The joy of data analysis
12. The options mechanism in R
13. A corner on convenient data analysis
14. Living it up with computational errors
15. Bricks not monoliths
16. 100 savvy sites on statistics
17. The AllTrials campaign

Views at other sites are not included — that is, views at R-bloggers and statsblogs.

This ordering gives an unfair advantage to posts that were written early in the year. Read more →

I failed to find Kahneman’s book in the economics section of the bookshop, so I had to ask where it was.  “Oh, that’s in the psychology section.”  It should have also been in the statistics section.

He states that his collaboration with Amos Tversky started with the question: Are humans good intuitive statisticians?

The wrong brain

Read more →

Music and snow.

Poke my eyes out

Perhaps your immediate response is: “I’d rather poke my eyes out with a burning stick than do data analysis.”

There’s a completely different reaction from a lot of people who have experienced data analysis.

Music

It’s not entirely clear why humans like music so much. Part of it may be the guessing game we do.  We perceive a pattern in the music and guess where it will go next.  One of two things happens:

• we are gratified to be right
• we are surprised to be wrong

Read more →

How to have a better chance of a good outcome.

Making mistakes

There’s been a lot of talk recently about data analysis problems with spreadsheets.  If you’ve not stuck your head out of your cave lately, then you can catch some of the discussion by doing an internet search for:

Reinhart Rogoff

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The AllTrials campaign is pushing for all data on drug trials to be made public — see the campaign statement.

If the public has all the evidence rather than a biased selection of evidence, then it will be possible to make better decisions.

There’s been a good start, but more people need to know about it and more people need to push for it.

What you can do

• Sign the petition
• Follow them on Twitter (#alltrials)
• Spread the word
• Send money

Online Math Degrees has a page of “100 savvy sites on statistics and quantitative analysis”.  It has some that you recognize, some that you’ve hardly ever heard of.

The sites are divided into groups.  I think the R section should have included R-bloggers, but what do I know?

I think it’s well worth strolling through.

Epilogue

People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame,
Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain.

— from “Celluloid Heroes” by Ray Davies Read more →