Well, well. My old English 2B classmate, Professor Monk, has hit the bright lights of the media world. The Professor has an article at Newsday.com in his area of scholarly expertise, the effect of distractions on driving performance and safety.
In this instance, The Professor addresses the oft-ignored issue of statistical relevance, and the way that failure to bring context to scary numbers can make for great headlines without really providing useful information. I love it when experts in statistics point out stuff like this -- Disraeli was right, after all.
I particularly enjoyed the seemingly random cross-reference between the Long Island counties that are the subject of the piece and Santa Clara County. Only those who know the good Professor would be likely to pick up on why that comparison was made. Also, I must nod in appreciation to the properly pluralized phrase "these data are..."
Being an expert in how drivers deal with distractions, in this era of cell-phones and the execrable iDrive system seems likely to lead to many more opportunities to conduct research and inform the public. Can an appearance on The Today Show be far behind?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment