Mention the word statistics to any ordinary audience and the faces around won’t disappoint with their myriad contours. Statistics has been reduced to its barest to make it conjure only numbers. Well that could be true but the truth remains there is more to statistics than mere numbers.
Acalculi (general fear on numbers) is the genesis of most people demonizing statistics. For the records there is mere counting and number arrangement (combinatorics) and statistics just like there is number manipulation (arithmetic) and mathematics. So what the heck am I up to with all these? Well, I am not splitting hairs nor engaging is a simple game of semantics.
Anybody engaged in any form of research inevitably becomes a statistician on sorts. Yes that research question of yours is nothing but a NULL HYPOTHESIS. And you do your thing and end up ‘proving’ or ‘disapproving’ it. That last bit is decision premised on ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS. But again why all the heat with these two ordinary words – null and alternative? And there lies the catch, you either get it or miss the boat by a river and your research is everything but DOOMED.
Three brands of liars
A statistician will have the hardest time explaining the ordinary words to anybody outside her profession. As a chartered epidemiologist/statistician I found it one of my greatest challenges explaining to a jury what these MUNDANE terms mean in everyday life. So here I was on standing precariously with my profession at stake before legal scoundrels ready with hammers and six-inch nails to puncture holes into my evidence. All they want from me is an exhaustive and unambiguous explanation of types I and II errors. See already you are numerically blushing at my preference for Roman numerals instead of the ordinary 1 and 2!
Well to cut a long story short, hypothesis testing and estimation are the two singular important wheels in the statistical cog. Hypothesis is nothing but an informed statement about an unknown population parameter whose plausibility we want to evaluate using information obtained from a sample of the same population. Such an assertion becomes the Null hypothesis and it can be either true or false its complementary becomes the ALTERNATIVE hypothesis.
You make a mistake by rejecting the assertion if it is indeed true and consequently commit type I error. On the other hand you make a mistake by failing to reject the assertion if it indeed false hence committing type II error. So which of these errors is greater sin than the other? I gave the jury the analogy of convicting the innocent (type I) and releasing the guilty (type II). The law being the ass it is often designed to be would scream itself hoarse never to contemplate type I error at any cost.
So can you still lie with statistics? Granted there are three types of liars: liars, damn liars and statistics. Whatever brands of lies you prefer never make an ass out of yourself.
Tuesday 25 March 2008
Friday 21 March 2008
Political Generation Weaned on Deception
Yet another season again when our politicians are all over themselves mouthing superlative accolades to catch their ears of the bosses. In the din of all the broad smile in support of the peace deal, politicians are falling over themselves in fashions that would make the late Shariff Nassir and Kariuki Chotara green with envy.
The game remains the same, the players have swooped positions but the script is predictably the same. You listen to Martha Karua manufacture facts about Kibaki's foresightedness in partially filling his cabinet and you are reminded of Ezekiel Bargetuny's polished antics from the yonder years.
Trust Kenyan politicians to be converted overnight from pedestal of objective to swim swim in shameless psychophancy. The adage that the more things change the more they remain the same couldn't have been mare apt in describing our leaders. Enter Kiraitu Murungi and last week the good minister rediscovered his former reformist self in urging equity and respect to all political shades. Contrast that with his hitherto gate keeping of the present rot just three weeks ago.
Inverted virtues
Nothing hurts like politicians treating their electorate with utter contempt. These scoundrels for leaders must be entertaining in their small minds the myth that Kenyans have no brains of their own and we also elect them to think for us. Otherwise the obtuse goofs that has become their forte only exposes the selfish realms on which they premise their politics.
The present generation of Kenyan politicians were conceived and weaned on deception as an inverted virtue. This vice spares none of them. Seeing Raila all over a sudden showing Kibaki with untrue and hollow praises only goes deep enough to expose the fact that our politicians and leaders in general stand for nothing.
Our only saving grace is that Kenyans are far ahead of their leaders. We know what we want as the falling of giants in last elections clearly proved. While the present lot stand for nothing and only scheme to ride on our collective backs towards realizing their selfish ends, the ultimate booting price is guaranteed. The know-it-alls may delude themselves by fooling some people some time but not all Kenyans all the times. Never and soon we will reclaim out beautiful country.
The game remains the same, the players have swooped positions but the script is predictably the same. You listen to Martha Karua manufacture facts about Kibaki's foresightedness in partially filling his cabinet and you are reminded of Ezekiel Bargetuny's polished antics from the yonder years.
Trust Kenyan politicians to be converted overnight from pedestal of objective to swim swim in shameless psychophancy. The adage that the more things change the more they remain the same couldn't have been mare apt in describing our leaders. Enter Kiraitu Murungi and last week the good minister rediscovered his former reformist self in urging equity and respect to all political shades. Contrast that with his hitherto gate keeping of the present rot just three weeks ago.
Inverted virtues
Nothing hurts like politicians treating their electorate with utter contempt. These scoundrels for leaders must be entertaining in their small minds the myth that Kenyans have no brains of their own and we also elect them to think for us. Otherwise the obtuse goofs that has become their forte only exposes the selfish realms on which they premise their politics.
The present generation of Kenyan politicians were conceived and weaned on deception as an inverted virtue. This vice spares none of them. Seeing Raila all over a sudden showing Kibaki with untrue and hollow praises only goes deep enough to expose the fact that our politicians and leaders in general stand for nothing.
Our only saving grace is that Kenyans are far ahead of their leaders. We know what we want as the falling of giants in last elections clearly proved. While the present lot stand for nothing and only scheme to ride on our collective backs towards realizing their selfish ends, the ultimate booting price is guaranteed. The know-it-alls may delude themselves by fooling some people some time but not all Kenyans all the times. Never and soon we will reclaim out beautiful country.
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