Comments on: Questioning conventional wisdom

By: utwou

utwou — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 12:52:02 +0000

I agree with Johnson. This is as anything in life: There are drivers who would have and accident if they used their cell-phones and drivers who wouldn’t. Always righteous pay for sinners.

By: Bobbie Johnson

Bobbie Johnson — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:15:04 +0000

A postulation for the lazyweb to consider.

Is the lack of massive surge in auto accidents down to the fact that these people are dangerous drivers who are more likely to have accidents anyway? Perhaps phone use is an increasing cause of the accidents that would be happening regardless because the people who do this stuff are those less likely to concentrate properly on driving?

By: Thomas Knuewer

Thomas Knuewer — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:18:14 +0000

As far as I know, there the number of car accidents with drivers who made a call during the crash was rising until they put a fine on using cell phones without ear phones.

By: chico haas

chico haas — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:13:27 +0000

Gun to my head, prefer a few fender-benders to allowing cell use on airplanes.

By: Ryan Sholin

Ryan Sholin — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 03:25:11 +0000

A read of the release makes it pretty clear that while the data is fine, the conclusions are overplayed in the lede, if you’ll allow me to mix media for a moment.

The researchers found no correlation between the increase in cell phone use “just after 9 p.m. on weekdays, the point when off-peak, ‘free minutes’ kick in on many cell phone plans”.

And that sounds like just about it.

I don’t know about you, but I’d be far more interested in data that looks at a time period of something more like, say, the afternoon rush hour. Which is what the lede leads us to believe is the case.

A well-written press release, nonetheless.

By: kingdom2000

kingdom2000 — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:49:04 +0000

As Mark Twain said (and think taken from another) “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.”

Rarely are stats developed solely on scientific curiosity. Usually there is an agenda. And usually its in the best interst of the stat company to present data that supports their client’s agenda.

They should ask the Ws. Who commissed the report. Why did they want to report. What did they hope to accomplish. When was it done? How was the data collected? What blinds and standards where used to make sure the data is “clean”. What data was removed and why? And so on.

There are a lot of questions to ask that can either give greater strength to stats or rip them to shreds. Reports should automatically be doing the above yet more and more they just re-write a press release as their own, toss in a couple quotes and call it a day. Thats not reporting. Its really just cut and pasting.