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Author Topic: Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen  (Read 3526 times)

Damian

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Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
« on: December 04, 2010, 10:18:46 AM »
It's from 2006 but I found it last week.. a 20 min lecture about Statistics in the context of Global Development
A great talk about statistics and the software used to visualize data is impressive IMO.

"Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen"
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

The subject is interesting as well I think. In the beginning of the video Hans Rosling talks about asking students and professors to answer 5 questions with two possible answers:  Which country has the highest child mortality ?
 
 Sri Lanka or Turkey
 Poland or South Korea
 Malaysia or Russia
 Pakistan or Vietnam
 Thailand or South Africa
 
In every question the child mortality rate is double the other.
 
The students had 1.8 correct answers on average
The Swedish professors (the people issueing the Nobel prize every year) had 2.4 correct answers on average
A bunch of chimpanzees could be expected to score 2.5

The experiment stuck in my head the past week... is the world really like that ? We are all sheeple repeating what the media feeds us ?
It just doesn't seem a very professional level after all those years of humanity evolving ;)
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4Eyes

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Re: Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2010, 12:38:03 PM »
That really is an impressive presentation!

Quote
We are all sheeple repeating what the media feeds us ?

In the main part, sadly, I think the answer is 'yes we are'.

If I had the time, I would love to study the psychology of 'belief' as it applies to our modern world (in the non-religious sense of the word belief).
So many of our beliefs are based on our individual national mythology (which is always, at best, highly selective) and the media 'feed' that best supports our individual political leanings.

FWIW - I got all 5 right - probably being pre-warned helped, but also I used knowledge of internet usage in the specific countries to draw a parallel.
I reckon most people outside our industry would still struggle with these. 
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encyclo

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Re: Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
« Reply #2 on: December 04, 2010, 07:00:16 PM »
Another great Hans Rosling video is this one:

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html

This one has a great ending too ;)
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JamesR

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Re: Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
« Reply #3 on: December 04, 2010, 07:28:15 PM »
Quote
Which country has the highest child mortality

I haven't watched the video but that question deals with a subject most people are not educated about.  Maybe the lecture gives the reason for asking such a question?
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ergophobe

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Re: Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2010, 09:47:09 PM »
Richard beat me to it - that new Hans Rosling video is great too. No sword swallowing, but always an awesome presenter.

I subscribe to TED via iTunes. So much great stuff.

Favorites include William McDonough about sustainable building in China and Ken Robinson on education. Dave Eggers on education too. But there are so many good ones.

www.ted.com/speakers/william_mcdonough.html
www.ted.com/speakers/sir_ken_robinson.html
www.ted.com/speakers/dave_eggers.html

There are many other good ones that just aren't coming to mind right now.
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Damian

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Re: Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
« Reply #5 on: December 05, 2010, 11:02:52 AM »
>that question deals with a subject most people are not educated about.
That is sort of the point. If you know nothing about this you could expect 2.5 correct answers on average.
If the average score is lower there are presumably some (media) influences at work that make most people guess wrong.

>Maybe the lecture gives the reason for asking such a question?
It's a lecture about Global Development by a Swedish Professor.

« Last Edit: December 05, 2010, 11:05:30 AM by Damian »
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nffc

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Re: Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2010, 10:20:13 PM »
I haven't watched the video yet but halfway through reading the Black Swan, great book that really makes you think about what you think you and others actually "know".
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