Stats

(Statistics)Deceptive Statistics Discussion due on the 24th

There are examples of deceptive statistics everywhere - visual data presentations (charts/graphs)—from magazines to newspaper articles. Locate a particularly outrageous chart/graph and interview people in your company about the message they interpret from this example. Ask them the purpose of the statistics/research--chart/graph, the strengths and weaknesses of the chart/graph and if are they convinced or suspicious of its findings. What would they recommend to make the results more credible (if anything). Make an audio or video clip of your interview and upload it to this cite. Be sure to include a picture of the graph in the discussion forum.

Figure 3. A deceptive graph where the values of the labels are not proportional to the lengths of the bars

Although the number of decimal places might suggest precision in the data labels of Figure 3; in fact, the values of the labels are not proportional to the lengths of the bars. The bars were drawn using one set of values and the labels were inserted with another set of values using text boxes to give the impression of rapidly increasing sales. How many of you noticed the deception before it was pointed out to you?

Figure 4. An honest graph corresponding to the labels in Figure 3.

We now show a bar graph plotted with the data from the labels of Figure 3. Notice that the sales growth now appears to be fairly linear, while Figure 3 suggests rapid growth in recent years. The scale on the vertical axis prevents the type of trickery shown in Figure 3.`

Assignment due on the 26th

Question 1

If you could stop time and live forever in good health, what age would you pick? Answers to this question were reported in a USA Today Snapshot. The average ideal age for each age group is listed in the following table; the average ideal age for all adults was found to be 41. Interestingly, those younger than 30 years want to be older, whereas those older than 30...