New Zealand Statistical Association Newsletter 67
March 2008
Editorial - Geoff Jones
February
is a busy time for me. Summer School is just finishing and there are exams
to mark. Semester One is about to start. And then there's the newsletter
to put together. So evenings have been finding me sitting at a table at
home surrounded by piles of bright yellow exam scripts, while the rest
of the family watch TV. It can be quite depressing when students seem
unable to make sense of statistical arguments. I had just hit a particularly
rich vein of abysmal scripts (funny how they cluster together) when I
was distracted by a ringing announcement from the TV: “New Zealanders
eat twice as much red meat as the rest of the developed world!”.
My astonishment subsided somewhat when I realized they were probably not
talking about total consumption, but some sort of per capita average.
I wondered how this was estimated. One method is the national accounting
system using records of production, exports and imports to get total consumption
and then dividing by total population. But I know from work with the World
Food Programme that the Food and Agricultural Organization is moving away
from this system towards a survey-based method which they think gives
greater accuracy. At the same time, food consumption data from surveys
is notoriously unreliable. How much red meat did your family eat yesterday?
Then there's the question of “adult equivalence”. Should we
adjust the per capita averages for the age and gender structure of each
household or population? Is all the meat consumed? In our family a certain
proportion always goes to the cat during cooking - we call it the meat
tax. Finally, the operation of red meat consumption as a risk factor,
for heart disease say, will depend on the entire distribution and not
just the mean.
It seemed to me that a good half-hour programme could have been put together,
explaining where this statistic came from and what it means. But the programme
in question had no time for this - hardly had they finished dropping this
one on us when they were rattling off the next enlightening statistic:
“This kilogram of minced beef, when it was alive, belched out enough
methane to fill a balloon the size of Chester Borrows, before the stomach-staple”:
or something like that - I was having trouble keeping up. And so it continued,
one meaningless “fact” after another, all designed apparently
to convince us that Science is Fun but Global Warming is Bad, without
really explaining anything.
I suppose we should be pleased to see statistics featuring so prominently
in the mass media. But I couldn't help connecting the shallowness of the
presentation with the bewilderment of my students. Making sense of statistics
requires some effort, and we might as well admit it. A later courtroom
drama also featured statistical arguments - the prevalence of HIV, the
effectiveness of condoms - but they seemed much more apposite and understandable.
Maybe only in the world of fiction, where the audience’s attention
can be taken for granted, can we allow ourselves the luxury of explaining
what we mean. And maybe I should cancel all future lectures and get my
students to watch Boston Legal instead.
Geoff Jones
Geoff
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Regular members: Valerie Cox, Rolf Turner, Ken Richardson, Sweta Baldawa, Magnus McGee, Nicholas Jon Horton.
Student members: Katrina
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Jennifer Brown
Submissions to the Newsletter
The Newsletter welcomes any submissions of interest to members of the New Zealand Statistical Association. News about New Zealand statisticians, statistical meetings, statistical organisations, statistics in education, or statistical curiosities are suitable for inclusion. Letters that raise issues of importance to statistics in New Zealand are also welcomed. Photographs of recent gatherings and new appointees are of particular interest. Electronic submissions are preferred and you may use this link.
Next deadline 22 August 2008.
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Editor
Geoff Jones
IIS&T Massey University
Private Bag 11222, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Phone: 06 350 5779; Fax: 06 350 2261
Email:
g.jones@massey.ac.nz
