Saturday, August 30, 2014

Episode 0008: Misuse of statistics, and misunderstanding of randomness and probability

Misuse of statistics

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Clip from original episode

A bit from the classic British show, Yes Prime Minister.
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Apple WWDC keynote 


Apple CEO Tim Cook at this year’s World Wide Developers Conference Keynote. He points out that Apple has an install base of 80 Million Macs.

Based on NetMarketShare data, as of May 2014, Windows 8 can be found on about 14 percent of all PCs currently running Windows. But with an overall market share of about 1.5 billion, Windows PCs represent nearly 91 percent of all computers in use worldwide. In simple terms, that means that Windows 8, widely considered a “failure” by critics and competitors, is in use on about 210 million PCs worldwide. That’s more than 5 times the install base of Mavericks, and more than 2.5 times the install base of every Mac currently in use. (Source: http://www.tekrevue.com/windows-8-outpaces-os-x-mavericks/)

This also ignores other points of difference. Windows 8 is a major update that pretty much people only get with new machines and have to pay for. Maveriicks is a minor free upgrade by comparison.

Full keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w87fOAG8fjk

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Andrew Bolt and climate contrarians 

Analysis of this factoid:


Original Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NDfwkr8hig
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Misunderstanding of probability

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Sally Clark wrongful conviction 

Background - Wikipedia on Sally Clark: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Clark
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Evolution and spontaneous beginning of life

From URCall.org, a community of Christians sharing their ideas about the relationship between faith and science.

Original Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-0AksTzfx0

Fred Hoyle's junkyard tornado: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkyard_tornado
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Book I’m part of the way through reading: How to not be wrong: http://www.jordanellenberg.com/how-not-to-be-wrong/

Direct download of the episode: https://archive.org/download/HH101/HH101e0008.mp3
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The Second (eBook) Edition of Humbug! is available for about US$3.99 from:

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Episode 0007: Misuse of Information (Original Episode)

This is an original episode, however I have cut some of it out to add to the next episode.

This episode is going to focus on the misuse of science information.

The next episode will be on the misuse and misunderstanding of statistics. It will be a new one with Ben, but include some of the original episode on misuse of information - about statistics.

Direct download of the episode: https://archive.org/download/HH101/HH101e0007.mp3

The Second (eBook) Edition of Humbug! is available for about US$3.99 from:

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Episode 0006: Brain gym and the argument from imagination

As with the previous episode, this is partially based on my presentation at Brisbane SkeptiCamp 2014

Clips and information from this episode can be found here: http://www.skepticsfieldguide.net/2011/11/three-ways-of-examining-brain-or-any_26.html

A focus of this podcast was on the argument from imagination.

The Second (eBook) Edition of Humbug! is available for about US$3.99 from: