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I thought it was a dismal programme. Lots and lots of IT, fancy charts, Hans annoying self-publicising personality, but actually very little of statistics. The inquisitive mind of a statistician was missing, hypothesis testing was reduced to something that stops progress, and the last bit about mapping feelings was verging on ludicrous. In the end, it just made me depressed. The only interesting bit was Peter Norvig's stuff on the machine translation, but it is better to see him talking in his many presentations. Miguel -----Original Message----- From: email list for Radical Statistics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Moore, Robert Sent: 07 December 2010 23:37 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: The Joy of Stats Interesting programme (though I do wish documentary makers would not put irritating background music behind the speech). The first part seemed to be an exposition of simple statistics as we know and love them. Do any colleagues have access to the software that produces the gee-wizz animated graphs that were used? I'm assuming you all have the same enthusiasm for statistics! But did I get this wrong - it seems to me that towards the end of the programme we were moving very close to an old fashioned empiricism of a kind seldom seen today. This used to say that if you have enough data and big enough computers you will be able explain the human condition (or perhaps even 'the laws of society' to quote an early OED definition of sociology). But maybe I was reading too much into this. All very entertaining. Recommended this to some students and will be interested in their feedback - if they watched. Robert Professor Robert Moore School of Sociology and Social Policy Eleanor Rathbone Building The University of Liverpool L69 7ZA Telephone and fax: 44 (0) 1352 714456 ________________________________________ From: email list for Radical Statistics [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Manley [[log in to unmask]] Sent: 06 December 2010 15:07 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: FW: The Joy of Stats From the economic geography list: If you haven't already seen it in the listings, you may be interested in "The Joy Of Stats" by Professor Hans Rosling to be broadcast tomorrow (7 December) on BBC4 at 9pm. It looks to be a very exciting and inspiring programme. You can see the trailer here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00cgk8p And a short (four-minute) example of the sort of thing Professor Rosling does here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00cgkfk Best wishes David ___________________________________________________ Dr. David Manley Centre for Housing Research School of Geography and Geosciences University of St Andrews Irvine Building, North Street, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AL Tel: ++44(0)1334 462383, Fax: ++44(0)1334463949, Email: [log in to unmask]<http:[log in to unmask]> ESRC Seminar Series: www.neighbourhoodeffects.org<http://www.neighbourhoodeffects.org> School of Geography and Geosciences: www.st-andrews.ac.uk/gg<http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/gg> Centre for Housing Research: www.st-andrews.ac.uk/chr<http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/chr> The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland : No SC013532 ****************************************************** Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your message will go only to the sender of this message. 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