Decision Making Assignment

Statistics use/misuse – BBC News 6-part primer

Read: http://www.amstat.org/news/blastland_bbcprimer.cfm

Study the six types of misuse and abuse of statistics

Surveys, Counting, Percentages, Averages, Causation, and Doubt

Find, criticize, and analyze a real-world misuse for each type

For each of the six misuses you find, label your sections:

The Story – briefly summarize the story, and include URL or citation

The Flaw(s) – explain what’s wrong with the stats usage

The Reason – hypothesize about the author’s motivated reasoning

The Lesson(s) – apply critical thinking to explain how the usage would have to be redone to be fair and/or valid

Finally, summarize (200-300 words) your insights from this exercise, with respect to improving your own decision-making.