Lies, Damn Lies, Etc.

There's an oft-quoted aphorism that I deeply hate. It's attributed to 19th century Brittish Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and goes, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." Statistics aren't automatically mendacious just becuase they're statistics.  They're first and foremost a means of cataloging observations about the real world.  You can also think of them as a means of communicating those observations. It's in this realm that I take issue with Disraeli. As with any other form of communication, it can be earnest or it can be deceitful.  It can also be misunderstood. 

It's in this last category that the next story comes. The results of a study were misunderstood because the distinction between proportions and overall numbers was forgotten.  I present this as a cautionary tale as I'll let the authors explain. One other thing to note here is that the authors of the original study themselves failed to notice or failed to communicate what was in their own data.

Head Injuries Didn't Rise in Bike Share Cities

Recent Links

Here's a few things that caught my attention this week.  I have two hopes: that I'm giving you something you missed and that I can make this a regular feature. 

Solar Roads Revisited

I'm old enough to remember the engergy crisis of the 1970's and discussions surrounding the nacent possibilities of solar energy.  I remember in particular the smug way people with "common sense" would dismiss solar energy.  "What do you do on cloudy days? He he!" Obviously, there isn't a complete absence of photons on cloudy days. But, to be honest, I don't know that there weren't real practical problems with solar collectors in those days. 

For the last several months a company called Solar Roadways has been raising start-up money for a technology for paving roads with solar cells.  Like any new technology, they're getting the range of typical criticism from perfectly valid to downright silly. Solar Roadways has responded. The response is not without problems either. Instead of another pundit run-down, I thought I'd give you their side directly.

Half-Baked Science

Is marijuana a harmless pastime or a societal menace? It turns out that facts don't really care about your beliefs, as an article in the latest edition of science news shows.

Egyptian Pixels

Did you ever want to visit an Egyptian building as it was when it was new? Have you ever thought to ask that question? I hadn't either, until I stumbled on a collaboration between a company creating immersive learning software and an Egyptologist.

A company called Corinth and one Jaromír Krejčí, Ph.D (no, I don't know how to pronounce that) both out of the Czech Republic have created an application that lets you move through a three dimensional reconstruction of the hall of a fifth dynasty pharaoh named Raneferef. Is ancient history not your thing? Corinth has a few other apps that might interest you. Please remember you're there for the 3D, not the translated text.