A recent article in the Seattle Times covering a poll by Elway Research gives me an opportunity to discuss statistical testing. The description of the methodology indicates, as I’d expect, that the poll was conducted properly to achieve a representative sample: About the poll: Telephone interviews were conducted by live, professional interviewers with 405 voters selected at random from registered [...]

As a tea-drinking Brit I was fascinated by a study about tea drinking in Northern Iran concluding that drinking very hot tea is strongly associated with higher risk of oesophageal cancer. Digging in further, I was struck by a number of points: The article I first noticed, by Karen Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times, was very clearly written and didn’t mangle the facts or interpretations. Such clarity is unusual and deserves a commendation. [...]

It shouldn't be a surprise that Nate Silver (statistics whizkid behind FiveThirtyEight.com which did an outstanding job of predicting the results of the 2008 election) is turning his attention to matters other than politics.   After all, before he became a political pundit his forte was baseball statistics. If you want to read the published predictions head over to the [...]