Margaret Thatcher's changing of rules for counting the unemployed.
Stalin's use of bogus statistics to hide the failure of agricultural
policies and (even more immoral) the high death rate. [I don't know the
details but I believe they are well documented and may have involved
punishing uncooperative statisticians.]
UK Governments methods of commissioning research, and of appointing and
sacking "experts".
BUT
Is safeguarding commercial interests by the abuse or suppression of
statistics the same as keeping immoral minorities in power?
There is a parallel but almost opposite problem of requiring research
results to conform to political correctness and fashion which may be
partly responsible for the fiasco on immigration figures (and for the
sacking of Professor Nutt).
--
Mrs Jane Galbraith
Honorary Research Associate
Department of Statistical Science
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
[log in to unmask]
> RadStats conference organisers are looking to highlight the use of
> research to maintain immoral minorities in powerful positions. Along the
> way, the top ten examples will illuminate how to distinguish poor research
> from good research. Here are two examples that have been featured in
> Radical Statistics recently, but I have a feeling that there are many more
> historical and startling examples. Please add your own by sending them to
> me, or to the RadStats list. We may feature them at RadStats conference in
> London on Feb 27th (have you booked?)
>
> 1. Does street lighting reduce crime? Experiments with partial results
> favouring the lighting businesses that funded them.
> www.britastro.org/dark-skies/cfds2006/proceedings.pdf &
> http://www.radstats.org.uk/no091/index.htm
>
> 2. Do drugs pass stringent tests of effectiveness? Proctor & Gamble's
> refusal to pass full data to the academic who was writing the evaluation,
> the lack of support of their academic from Sheffield University which
> received the funding from Proctor & Gamble, and the eventual understanding
> that the withheld data seriously undermined the company's claims of
> effectiveness. www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/04/87/76/BMJCHH.pdf
> <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/04/87/76/BMJCHH.pdf> (p1049) &
> http://www.radstats.org.uk/no094/index.htm
> <http://www.radstats.org.uk/no094/index.htm>
>
> Ludi
>
> Radical Statistics Conference: 27th February 2010, London (Friends Meeting
> House, Euston)
>
> David Miller on Spinwatch / Eileen Magnello on Florence Nightingale / Paul
> Marchant on street lighting / Heather Brooke on Right to know / Harvey
> Goldstein on statistical ethics / Danny Dorling on statistics of injustice
> / activity workshops / Social activities before and after ...
>
> Full programme and booking form at
> http://www.radstats.org.uk/conf2010/index.htm
> Registration fee of £35 for non-members with reductions for members and
> low-waged.
>
> Booking is open now. Please circulate and promote to colleagues, friends,
> activists and students.
>
>
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> subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. To find out more about
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