Archive for October, 2016

Scary statistics about Halloween

I am torn whether it will be scarier to dress up as the nightmarish Freddie Krueger from Elm Street or as a statistics instructor.  Which would you rather be locked in a windowless room with?  Hmmm… best you not answer that.

Anyways, here are some frightful facts about the upcoming holiday reported in yesterday’s USA Today:

  • 171 million Americans plan to partake in Halloween festivities. Crazy!
  • On average, women will pay double for “non-sexy” Halloween costumes. The “sexy” costumes cost on average around $30, while the demure ones (boo!) go for near $60.
  • Witch and pirate are the first two costumes of choice, followed by Trump and Clinton. Hmmm… is this a case of perfectly opposite correlation?

Happy Halloween!

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Obscurity does not equal profundity

In 1989 I attended a debate where George Box defended the standard approach for design of experiments against the Taguchi method.  In summary he simply put up a mathematical equation on three scraps of transparencies that projected “Obscurity” “not equal to”  “Profundity”.  This created a memorable uproar from the Taguchi disciples in the audience.”

I am reminded of this upon the news that the winner of the 2016 Ig Nobel Peace Prize is this paper by University of Waterloo Ph.D. psychology candidate Gordon Penny et al On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit.  This treatise sorts out what is serious bullshit versus simply nonsense or harmless mundanity.  It provides this example of pseudo profundity from an actual tweet sent by a well-known New Age healer and advocate of alternative medicine:

Attention and intention are the mechanics of manifestation.

Evidently many people are not only prone to eating up stuff like this but they also lack to ability to sniff it out.  The Waterloo researchers tested a large number (280) undergrads on a Bullshit Receptivity (BSR) scale.  They then completed several follow up studies, going all out to shovel the BSR.  ; )

It composts down to bullshit not only being more ubiquitous than ever before (being a big part of internet) but also increasingly popular.  The authors’ hope by their study to reduce BSR and thereby the generation of it due to this improved detection of obscure pseudo profundities.  That would be good!

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