MetaFilter posts tagged with statistics and us

Be careful drawing conclusions from this data

sambosambo — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:50:39 -0800

StateStats: Explore the popularity of search queries in U.S. states StateStats shows you how popular a particular Google search is in each state. It also shows correlation with other state rankings such as obesity, income, or unemployment. Here are some examples to get you started, and remember that correlation does not imply causation and all that. MetaFilter/Bacon Porn/Church Christmas/Hanukkah Tequila/Vodka/Rum/Whiskey/Wine Ghosts/UFOs/Bigfoot/Elvis

Our Phony Economy.

chunking express — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 07:57:13 -0800

Our Phony Economy. From the conclusion:

The purpose of an economy is to meet human needs in such a way that life becomes in some respect richer and better in the process. It is not simply to produce a lot of stuff. Stuff is a means, not an end. Yet current modes of economic measurement focus almost entirely on means. For example, an automobile is productive if it produces transportation. But today we look only at the cars produced per hour worked. More cars can mean more traffic and therefore a transportation system that is less productive. The medical system is the same. The aim should be healthy people, not the sale of more medical services and drugs. Now, however, we assess the economic contribution of the medical system on the basis of treatments rather than results. Economists see nothing wrong with this. They see no problem that the medical system is expected to produce 30 to 40 percent of new jobs over the next thirty years. “We have to spend our money on something,” shrugged a Stanford economist to the New York Times. This is more insanity. Next we will be hearing about “disease-led recovery.” To stimulate the economy we will have to encourage people to be sick so that the economy can be well.

US Presidential Greatness as a Function of Experience

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 06:25:50 -0800

Is an Experienced President a Good President?

US Census Bureau's DataWeb

Gyan — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 07:03:28 -0800

TheDataWeb - a network of online data libraries on topics including census data, economic data, health data, income and unemployment data, population data, labor data, cancer data, crime and transportation data, family dynamics, vital statistics data

City-data pictures

Recockulous — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 20:52:23 -0800

City-Data has a lot of statistics on about every city, town and village in the US. While there is nothing new about this service, I enjoyed being able to compare cities and towns of interest. What inspired me to post it here though, are the pages of random pictures submitted to the site from all over the country. Basically, you get a diverse collage of how people see their own locals. Here's a nice example.

edlundart — Wed, 23 Oct 2002 14:17:14 -0800

The First Measured Century contains quite a bit of information about American society; population, work, education, religion, health, money, politics, crime and more. Everything from the median marriage age to the percentage of Americans who believe it is wrong to go to the movies on Sundays (13%).

quirked — Wed, 11 Apr 2001 13:18:49 -0800

75% of Americans favor Government funding of faith-based organizations. However, when asked about specific faiths, that number drops dramatically to 38% for Buddhist Temples and 29% for the Nation of Islam. So what did they expect, their own religion should get funds, but no others?