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What sources do you get good statistics from?
Hans Rosling Tweeted a site which I really liked: http://www.peoplemov.in/#t_SE
And then I came to think about his extraordinary website http://www.gapminder.org/
And in Sweden we have the Statistics Sweden http://www.scb.se/default____2154.aspx
So, what sources do you use for good statistics? And could you provide a link?
Topics:
statistics
Jimmy Strobl 30+
Tim blackburn 30+
Jimmy Strobl 30+
Tim blackburn 30+
Dain Brammage
Statistics are usually just a means to an end. expert pollsters know how to frame the questions to get the answers they want to skew the results.
Christophe Cop 500+
Sadly, that happens.
I abhor such practices, as it damages the good researchers and scientists out there... and it confuses the lay-men who can't distinguish between good and bad research, polls and surveys.
Scott Armstrong 50+
Jimmy Strobl 30+
This is one statement that we will debate, elaborate!!
Scott Armstrong 50+
You can identify trends to your hearts content but it is only ever about the stats, it never seems to be applicable or relevant to the people from which the stats were derived.
Also, unless you survey everyone under the exact conditions and exactly the same frame of mind with an absolute control on the truth being told then they are just a talking point over the teacups at best.
Jimmy Strobl 30+
Scott Armstrong 50+
On further thought, my gripe is really the misappropriation of statistics, by which I mean, in the case of education systems, student learning data is gathered for the purposes of the Ministry of Education and rarely for the purpose of enhancing actual classroom experience.
This consumes a lot of valuable teacher/student time for the purposes of bureaucracy.
Jimmy Strobl 30+
Christophe Cop 500+
" I cant find meaning in statistics"?
or
" I don't understand statistics sufficiently to derive the meaning from it"?
Ok, this was ad hominem, I only wanted to indicate I disagree with your statement
Jimmy Strobl 30+
To me saying that statistics are meaningless is almost equal to saying that there is no knowledge...
Scott Armstrong 50+
I was totally confounded by the subject Statistics at highschool so I dropped it and took History instead.
Christophe Cop 500+
- Wolfram alpha can produce some good data (http://www.wolframalpha.com/)
- World health organisation bundles data from across the globe. http://www.who.int/research/en/ This is often quite accurate (though some measures have broad confidence intervals)
- A lot of country government websites release a lot of data
- Google analytics is good http://www.google.com/intl/nl_ALL/analytics/
- scientific research sometimes publish raw data
There are a lot of projects around open data ( http://www.opendatafoundation.org/ for example), I suggest to dig in there, you are likely to find a lot of sites.
like this: http://ckan.net/
As for statistics (numbers derived from data-sets): depends on how they are constructed... so if in doubt about the validity, try and find out how it was derived. That can give a good estimate of the validity and reliability.
As for getting good statistics: I construct them myself ;-)
Jimmy Strobl 30+
These are sites that all should have a look at! ;)