Thinking in Numbers
- 1. Thinking in Numbers An Introduction to Critical Thinking with Statistics. Edmund J Sutcliffe edmunds@considrd.consulting
- 2. Critical Thinking Critical thinking has seven critical features: ● being inquisitive and curious ● being open-minded to different sides ● being able to think systematically ● being analytical ● being persistent to truth ● being confident about critical thinking itself ● and lastly, being mature Facione, Peter A.; Facione, Noreen C. (March 1993). "Profiling critical thinking dispositions". Assessment Update. 5 (2): 1–4. doi:10.1002/au.3650050202. ISSN 1041-6099
- 3. Thinking in Numbers A Statistical Approach ● Data collection ● Descriptive statistics ● Exploratory data analysis ● Estimation ● Hypothesis testing Think Stats: Probability and Statistics for Programmers Downey, Allen B (2014)
- 4. Data Collection ● Consider the question ● Consider the source (author, date, supporting evidence) ● Consider the bias ● Consider logical fallacies ● Consider the hypothesis
- 5. Cognitive Biases How Cognitive Biases Influence How You Think and Act Cherry, Kendra (February 03, 2020) ● Confirmation Bias ● Availability Heuristic ● Halo Effect ● Attention Bias ● Actor-Observer Bias ● Functional Fixedness ● Anchoring Bias ● Misinformation Effect ● False Consensus Effect ● Optimism Bias ● Dunning-Kruger Effect
- 6. Trustable information Most of us look for evidence of trustworthiness — of ● Competence ● Honesty ● Reliability Onora O'Neill
- 7. The Question Do first babies tend to arrive late? ● “My two friends that have given birth recently to their first babies, BOTH went almost 2 weeks overdue before going into labour or being induced.” ● “My first one came 2 weeks late and now I think the second one is going to come out two weeks early!!” ● “I don’t think that can be true because my sister was my mother’s first and she was early, as with many of my cousins.”
- 8. Trustable information Most of us look for evidence of trustworthiness — of ● Competence ● Honesty ● Reliability Onora O'Neill FAIL Small number of observations Selection bias Confirmation bias Inaccuracy
- 9. The Question What do we mean by late ? What is the length of human gestation ?
- 10. Consider the question “What is the length of human gestation ?” ● The average length of human gestation is 280 days, or 40 weeks, from the first day of the woman's last menstrual period. The medical term for the due date is estimated date of confinement (EDC) Google's Featured Snippet from Victoria Govenment ● Birth normally occurs at a gestational age of about 40 weeks, though it is common for births to occur from 37 to 42 weeks Wikipedia Article on Human Gestation ● The length of pregnancy can vary naturally by as much as five weeks, research suggests…. Due dates can be calculated from working out 280 days after the start of the woman's last menstrual period BBC News Article
- 11. Consider the source “What is the length of human gestation ?” ● Google's Featured Snippet from Victoria Govenment last edit August 2014 no mention source ● Wikipedia Article on Human Gestation last edit 30 January 2020 reporting American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists - How Your Baby Grows During Pregnancy FAQ answer no mentioned source ● BBC News Article 7th August 2013 Study of 125 women reporting the journal of Human Reproduction article produced by US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
- 12. Consider the source “What is the length of human gestation ?” ● Google's Featured Snippet from Victoria Govenment last edit August 2014 no mention source ● Wikipedia Article on Human Gestation last edit 30 January 2020 reporting American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists - How Your Baby Grows During Pregnancy FAQ answer no mentioned source ● BBC News Article 7th August 2013 Study of 125 women reporting the journal of Human Reproduction article produced by US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Looks like 40 weeks (280 days)
- 13. The Question Do first babies tend to arrive late? ● Gestation period against number of births Vital Statistics Annual Report 2014, Births
- 14. The Question Do first babies tend to arrive late? ● Gestation period against number of births Vital Statistics Annual Report 2014, Births FAIL No differentiation of number of births
- 15. Can we find the Data Live births by gestation by child number ? ● Where can we find appropriate data ? ● CDC National Survey of Family Growth ● https://github.com/datasets ● https://datahub.io/ ● https://data.europa.eu/ ● https://data.gov.ie/ ● https://registry.opendata.aws ● https://cloud.google.com/public-datasets ● https://azure.microsoft.com/services/open-datasets/ ● https://www.globalfinancialdata.com/
- 16. National Survey of Family Growth ● Cross-sectional ● Longitudinal ● Sample based ● Over sampled for some population members ● Interview based
- 17. What does the data look like ? 70623516531616165 1 4000006 50 1 115 11 16255 5211131 2 135 125 055 05 0 0 000 0 55 0 221554 81 1 6 117 1 7 5 1 8 1 7 11 8 0 00 55555 55555 5 555 1 5 5 0 5 5 55 95 5 134551346513475134851349513505135151352513535135451355513565135751358513595136051361513625136351364513655136 6513675136851369513705137151372513735137451375513765137751378513795138051381513825138351384513855138651387513885138 9513905 55555550 55 5 1 0 5 6 7 6 75 75551 11 3 3 15 5 5555515555 5 51323355 3 5 2 5 315 1 211 1 995 515 42 725 27 1254 51 121 11311362155 5 1 0 0 05555 521 0 1111115 55 5 5 55 5555 1 2555555555555555 3 1 3 8 5 55555555165610 62222031200 21 3 200000000000000000000002 0 0 0 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 22 0 0 0 1 2 2 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000005622 2295 408888882 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000001 3000 20 00000000000000012360000113 820003631.827871901753322139013781345133313211712015 35.04 2015-17 Female Pregnacy Data Set
- 18. How do we interpret the data ? dictionary { ***************************************************************** * NATIONAL SURVEY OF FAMILY GROWTH (NSFG), 2015-2017 * STATA Pregnancy Data Dictionary * * Warning: Edit this file at your own risk * ***************************************************************** _lines(1) _column(1) long CASEID %5f "Case identification number" _column(6) byte PREGORDR %2f "Pregnancy order (number)" _column(8) byte HOWPREG_N %2f "BB-2 # of Weeks or Months Currently Pregnant" _column(10) byte HOWPREG_P %1f "BB-2 Current pregnancy length reported in months or weeks" _column(11) byte MOSCURRP %1f "Number of Months Currently Pregnant" _column(12) byte NOWPRGDK %1f "BB-3 Which Trimester -- Current Pregnancy" _column(13) byte PREGEND1 %1f "BC-1 How Pregnancy Ended - 1st mention" _column(14) byte PREGEND2 %1f "BC-1 How Pregnancy Ended - 2nd mention" .... 2015-17 Female Pregnacy Data Set Stata Dictionary
- 19. Choosing the Tool ● Python ○ Google's Colab python notebook platform ○ write your own ● R ● Stata/SPSS/SAS/Minitab
- 20. Are first babies more likely to be late Sep 9, 2019 Allen Downey
- 21. Reporting the Results ● John Kreb's On Crisis ○ Consensus - What we might know ○ Uncertainty - What we don’t know ○ Confidence - What are we doing ○ Self-efficacy - What might the individual do ○ Flexibility - Things will change