A possible future?

As everybody knows statistics began in the 70s when George Best wanted to count-up how many ladies he'd courted. But it has been argued that it may predate this when the crew of Star Trek went back in time to add up the number of Velosaraptors.

Regardless, no-one can argue that statistics in now one of the most popular and fashionable persuits known to man. Ever. Teenagers, looking meloncholic and apathetic, mumble sarcasticly to their parent about Normal distributions and Chi square tests. Kids sit at the back of class scratching famous names in to their desks, like Poisson and Guass, or at the back of buses playing stats quizzes on their iphones. The stats word is well and truely on the street.

Celebrities are clammering over themselves to be seen with the latest statistics text book under their arm or be spotted collecting medical or household data. Statisticians get all the girls. When Angelina Jolie dumped Brad Pitt for Dave the statistician we all knew it was just a matter of time. No longer do school kids aspire to be film stars or singers but famous statistician. Gold digger page three girls hope to land a statistician and lead a life of leasure. The TV show Stat Factor is officially the most watched program with, on average, everyone in the world watching every episode. At least once.

The recent film Statman, grossed the most of any film of all time and still has queues circling the block weeks after premiering. The 3-D version broke new ground in excitement and amazement.

Top Shop conitnues to bring out new designs in its Thats So Random range. Including I'm into Random Deviation or I'm a data, wanna date?

Well, I say enough! Yes, its cool to be into statistics and yes statisticians are better looking than the average people but I hark back to a different time, a more innocent time, when people cared more about anecdote and superstition. A time before the National Lottery came to end, when people really thought it could be them. A time when people thought of themselves as arty types and so never even ventured in to the cold heartless world of science. I dream back to the salad days when people would simply fold their arms and refuse to be

Sumthing to Think About

Published on-line for the Royal Statistical Society's Significance magazine on 12 September 2012

However many times I hear or repeat the quote that statistics is the next sexy job, I don't think anyone is seriously kidding themselves that it actually is. It may be fun to do at times and the applications are useful, interesting and broad. But it can never be sexy or interesting like, say, fashion or football. The main problem is that the thing that makes it appealling to the small proportion of the population is exactly the thing that puts most people off. It involves using your brain. Even in very mild doses, its at least like doing a tricky Sudoku or thinking about the subtleties of a political argument. And most people do not want to do this unless they're forced to or are being paid. Appealing to the beauty of the subject or the ability to reveal truth doesn't usually cut the mustard.

This is one of the reasons we don't see maths and stats programmes replacing cooking and home buying programmes on TV.

Another problem is that mathematics is one of the hardest subjects to present on TV and only does slightly better on radio. This may be due to radio not relying on wizzy computer graphics of dinosours or black holes and the slightly longer attention span of the audience. But still, it's hard work to pull-off successfully.

BBC4's The Joy of Stats presented by Professor Hans Rosling offered a wide range of some of the many  interesting and important applications of statistics with an emphasis on understanding the world. This was a success in what it aimed to do and I know plenty of people outside of professional statisticians who enjoyed watching it. This was not a programme to talk much about how maths and stats is actually done though.

The School of Hard Sums, piped-out on the cable channel Dave, seems to me to be something a little different to the usual documentary, talking-to-the-camera-in-exotic-locations-around-the world style; it is an attempt to present mathematics with the How. The format is this: Each week three toy problems are posed to the presenter Dara O'Brian, some students nestled in the corner and a guest comedian, who are supposed to tackle it from their own pragmatic, nerdy and comedic perspectives, respectively. The problems are posed by Professor Marcus Du Sautoy who holds the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science and presented the History of Mathematics for BBC TV and radio.

Du Sautoy, although I am sure is a lovely bloke, is most certainly on a different wave length to the guest comedians. He has the tone of voice that reminds me of a primary school teacher talking to her class with slow, deliberate pronunciation. This doesn't enamour the programme to the viewer, since they are most likely to associate with the non-mathematician. On occasion, when the comedians make jokes, in an attempt to save the programme from becoming nothing more than an after school homework club, the lack of rapport makes for an awkward interaction and viewing.

Dara, who clearly likes doing puzzles, is at his least charismatic because his mental focus is on the problem. He even gets visibly in a sulk when he doesn't come-up with the right answer which, althought consistent with the classroom atmostphere, doesn't make for great TV.

I really think that the premise of the programme could work and the aims are commendable. This is certainly a better show than I could have made but I also think that it could be much better. The contexts of the problems are too trivial and the wider applications are only skirted-over at the end. I think that people are intereseted in how they affect their lives- the "so what?"- and toy problems appear pointless and intellectually indulgent. I also think that the solutions should be spelt-out more clearly so that the audience can take something away with them. The show should be about ideas and not pages of working.

That all said, I have watched and enjoyed all 8 episodes. Unfortunately, I don't yet see this as the beginning of a glut of maths based shows on TV as the comedian David O'Doherty dryly proclaims on the first show, "I'm so glad I came on your maths-based show rather than one of the others."

Relationship between probability distributions

An interactive site is here.

Derren Brown

I've nearly finished reading Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind book. And its been enjoyable reading. He professes in the book to not want to have written a Self Help book (which his publisher first requested). In places it is a little like that but with a self-awareness and pragmatic simplicity that is missing from lots of other books of that type. At least the few I've seen. The rest of the book has sections focussed on things like magical tricks, body language and cold reading. These are obviously not new things to write about but his perspective is matter-of-fact and self-aware and he adds in personal anecdotes that are usually funny or sensitive and revealing.

The section that most interested me, predictably, was on pseudo-science and alternative medicines. It's essentially the same as the equivalent section in Ben Goldacre's Bad Science. What is different is he brings in his experience as a Christian when growing up and his idea of True Believer, someone with unshakable faith contrary to the Scientific Principle.

Derren Brown has gone up a little in my expectations but, wanting to adhere to the Scientific Principle, he needs to keep providing evidence to confirm my hypothesis that he's probably an alright bloke.

Realism Not Barcelona-ism

As a Liverpool fan, I am very interested and hopeful about our new man in the hot seat Brendan Rodgers. He's a relatively unproven manager, despite his time spent under the tutelage of Jose Mourino at Chelsea and at lower league clubs, and replaced the popular King Kenny. So he has plenty to prove. He seems to have landed the job after impressing the current US owners with his personality, plans for the future and philosophy. He's been billed in the press as a new breed of `tiki taki' manager, who understands, analyses and prepares with a modern information driven meticulousness; one that reveres Barcelona and Spain and the possesion football they play.

All sounds good, doesn't it?

But a few things worry me. One, I think branding Brendan and other like him as a sea-change in management is dangerous and naive. Things are clearly not as black and white as the press would have us believe. Roy Hodgson is reknowned for his detailed planning, attention to detail and high quality of training. We should not expect radical changes, however appealling this idea seems.

Secondly, will tiki-taki worki-worki when transfered into other contexts. This passing style of play has not been proven to be successful in England, where the game is generally more physical and the opposition teams play different tactics. Swansea had a fun first season back in the top flight but this was hardly a demonstration of the merits of this style over others.

Thirdly, I'm concerned that there may not be a plan-B in the Liverpool locker. Getting rid of Carrol, as now seems imminent, to my mind narrows the options available to the manager. Carrol can be a dangerous and effective player, whose style will worry particular sorts of opposition. He is clearly not a bad player and wants to prove himself at Liverpool. As the military say, always plan for the worst and expect these plans to not stand up to first contact. That is, have a plan B up your sleeve and a plan C and D, just in case.

Finally, I've read in several papers the following Rodgers quote

"...if you were better than your opponent with the ball, you have a 79 per cent chance of winning the game."

The blatant naivety in this statement worries me if he is making decision by it. Perhaps its is just a simple sound bite for the media hounds. To be so vague about the context and assumptions and so precise about the statistic renders this statement in isolation nonsense. It's a bit like a politician rolling out some cherry-picked statistic to back up his policy. I hope we get to hear an expanded version of this, at least to help me sleep at night.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not on Rodgers' back already. In fact, I'm really looking forward to the new season with a tempered optimism. It seems that people are prepared to give the new man some time to prove himself and his "new" philosophy too which I believe is the right thing to do. No-one talked about giving Roy time to implement his new philosophy but it seems like his days were numbered from the off. As a football fan its so easy to lurch from one extreme to the other. As Rodgers said himself, everyone makes mistakes. Lets just hope that one of them wasn't the choice of manager.