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Risk-Limiting Audits on PBS News Hour and USN&WR on statistics profession

  • 1.  Risk-Limiting Audits on PBS News Hour and USN&WR on statistics profession

    Posted 10-30-2020 15:28
    Dear Members, 

    I write to highlight two items that may be of interest: 
    1. Philip Stark is featured in a 5-minute News Hour segment on ensuring the accuracy of the vote: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-some-election-officials-are-trying-to-verify-the-vote-more-easily. They start with him in his kitchen making soup, to illustrate his use of soup tasting to explain random sampling. As you may know, Stark is a pioneer and champion of risk-limiting audits, which are featured in this piece and becoming more widely used. The ASA endorsed RLA's in 2010. I encourage you to view this very-well done piece. 
    2. USN&WR has published a very nice piece on statistics and the profession: What Statistics Is and How to Become a Statistician. Subtitled, "Statistics helps people understand often-complex data so they can make smart choices," it also has this paragraph:
    Statisticians are well-paid professionals, and their skills are in high demand. The median annual wage among U.S. statisticians was $91,160 as of May 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau predicts that the number of employed statisticians will be 35% higher in 2029 than it was in 2019 – a job growth forecast nearly nine times higher than the norm among all occupations.

    I hope you'll share both pieces with your networks. 

    Best,
    Steve




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    Steve Pierson
    Director of Science Policy
    American Statistical Association
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  • 2.  RE: Risk-Limiting Audits on PBS News Hour and USN&WR on statistics profession

    Posted 11-01-2020 10:17
    Here's another article that may be of interest: Without learning to think statistically, we'll never know when people are bending the truth. An excerpt:
    "Competent, honest statistics can illuminate essential truths. They can reveal social inequalities, indicate where resources or legislation should be directed, highlight dangers or help us to appraise a government's performance."


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    Steve Pierson
    Director of Science Policy
    American Statistical Association
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