And yet I am surrounded by statistical concepts every day. Sometime I am defined by them and sometimes statistics are used as a weapon.  Now it is not that I am totally ignorant. I make observations on human behavior, expected outcomes and playing the odds of will I make it across the street alive with a solid green light at rush hour.

But I don't have the mathematical language to be able to express it.  I don't have access to those folks who have a different idea of what a standard deviant is than I do.

I need a statistical Sherpa.  Because I do have questions and concerns about how statistics are being used to convey information or to indicate if a statement is true or false.

Yvonne at  Thought Bubbles was real helpful in pointing out that:

The phrase “scientific proof” is an oxymoron. You will never see an actual scientist use this phrase in scientific writing. I cross this phrase out every single time I see it in my undergrads’ papers. Using this phrase tells me immediately that you have not been trained in scientific reasoning and that your scientific commentary should be accompanied by a salt lick.

Science relies on statistics, and statistics are about probabilities. A lot of people seem to equate the phrase “statistically significant” with “proof” and…WRONG. Statistically significant just means that there is only a small chance that this particular experimental result is spurious.

So maybe I should be suspicious if I hear anyone claim that their statistics absolutely prove X ?

Sandy Szwarc of Junk Food Science uses her health education and nursing background to separate science from marketing hype and misinterpretation. The first post that I landed on was a detailed explanation of a joint University of North Carolina/Self Magazine online survey about eating habits. There are statistics all over the place many of them focused on the obsession with weight control. Sandy pointed out that:

Self readers admit to even more disordered eating to control their weight and more concerns focused on their bodies than the UNC survey. Are they attracted to magazines focused on health, beauty, fitness and healthy eating, or might women’s magazines such as these be giving messages that reinforce disordered eating, food fears and unhealthy attitudes and behaviors

I can tell you I don't read Self Magazine. My hips are ample testament to that fact. But it doesn't take too much imagination to see this or a similar survey pop up on a morning news show with the declaration that "American women are obsessed with their weight. A recent online survey by Self Magazine..."

If I hadn't read Sandy's post I wouldn't have thought that the survey was statistically skewed by women who are pre-disposed to be concerned about the body image. Now that population group has excessive body issues but would that be reflective of American women as a whole?

So another thing I seem to need to be aware of about statistics is how did they the researchers get the data and what are the inherent biases associated with that collection of data.

Patricia Lange at AnthroVlog did an interesting video showing how statistical information can be packaged as a way to reflect negative implications about a certain topic, in this can working mothers.

I was surprised at the number of cultural clues I missed and the ones that I picked up on immediately, the woman has no face, no identity.  In this case it wasn't necessarily that the numbers are bad but that the interpretation by the graphic artist made it seem that there is a serious point of concern about working moms.

Awareness is good but sometimes it gives me a headache.  But once you know what to look out for you can begin to evaluate what is being presented and like the song says "you won't be duped again."

Florence Nightingale - Statistician

I want to leave you with one of our statistical mentors. Florence Nightingale was many things to the United Kingdom. You might have known about her nursing gig but the woman was a top notch statistician. 

Her research lead to improvements in sanitation, medicine and led the path to the modern hospital as we know it.  Did I mention that she was a proto-feminist?

The BBC has a historical overview of Florence Nightingale that tries to separate myth from a very remarkable life. Victorian Web has a detailed article about Florence and her involvement in the Crimean War.

Additional Resources:

If you are curious as to what the actual statistics of working women visit the Department of Labor Women Bureau Quick Stats for 2007. You can learn that the median weekly earnings of women were $614 or 80% of what a man earns. So things don't seem to change much.

The Stats Blog is a non-profit, non-political blog whose mission is to correct much of the misinformation about science and statistics that is perpetrated by certain segments of a science impaired media.

If you sling that statistical jive and want to ride the bell curve check out Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference and Social Science where the world is seen through a statistical lens. Yes, they have numbers on Clinton and Obama too.

CE Gena Haskett also writes at Out On The Stoop and PCCLibTech