I don’t watch much TV.  Though I occasionally watch a crime procedural or two (see kids, science is fun!), I can’t remember the last time I watched a sitcom (scratch that, I have watch the Big Bang Theory on more than one occasion).  Thus I was somewhat interested to see the feminist blogosphere calling out the Zooey Deschanel vehicle (oh she’s so zany…..is that rain????) “The New Girl” for using a deceptive statistic.

Apparently a recent episode focused entirely on the premise that “by the time a lady hits 30, she loses about 90 percent of her eggs.”

When the fact checkers weighed in, they revealed that while that stat is true, women start out with approximately 300,000 eggs…..so at 30 there are still about 30,000 hanging out there.

Of course eggs don’t necessarily equate to fertility, and fertility doesn’t necessarily mean a healthy pregnancy.  Despite what many comments section trolls claim, women’s prime childbearing years are not in their teens, but rather peak at 25 or so.

While taking a look at this, I actually found more evidence that the fertility decline starts circa 27, but the overall chances of ever achieving pregnancy don’t start to drop off until 33 or 34.  This was a good reminder that the “turning 30” thing has little to do with an actual physiological change, and more to do with people just liking round numbers.

Also related: I had often heard (and even quoted) that women who had already had kids were able to have kids later in life than those who had not (ie a woman who has a child at 30 will have an easier time having another one at 37 then one who is trying at 37 for the first time).  There’s a suggestion that this actually isn’t true….it’s just that by having that first child you’ve self selected as someone who doesn’t have a pre-existing fertility problem.  I couldn’t find the original study to verify this….but it seems like a plausible oversight.

Another note: fertility stats are really difficult to try to find, IVF clinics are the ones publishing most of them and they’re dodgy with citations…..still a better source for info than a TV show though.

One last note: congrats to regular reader Andy….you’re going to love being a Dad.  The world needs more banjo players….brainwash him/her early and you just might get one.

There are very few things in life more boring than hearing someone talk about their fantasy football team….so feel free to tune out now.

Good grief has my first foray in to FF been a disaster….but an excellent example of how picking your data points can change the results.

For those of you not well versed in standard FF setups, each week your team plays another team in your league.  Your teams do not reflect real NFL teams, but rather new teams composed of existing players.  Your record is determined by how often you beat the team you’re playing that week.

In my league of 8 (run by the AVIs son, btw), I’m dead last.

However, I’m 3rd for points scored this year.  In fact, I’ve scored only 30 points less than the first place team….and 343 points more than the team directly ahead of me in the standings.   My problem of course is how many points my opponents score when they play me.  I have had more points scored against me than any other team by almost 100 points for the season.

Sigh.

This week is the first round of the playoffs, and I’m projected to lose yet again.  While I love the stats part of fantasy sports, it’s really much better to be lucky than good.

http://embed.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe.html Apparently I can’t get Ben Goldacre’s new book until February, so I only have this TED talk to hold me over until then.

Best quote “If I conducted one study, and withheld half the data points from that one study, you would rightfully accuse me of research fraud.  And yet for some reason, if somebody conducts ten studies, but only publish the 5 that give the result they want, we don’t consider that misconduct.”

Blogger tells me this post will be my 200th, so it seemed like a good time to go a little meta and reflect on my own statistics since I went live on March 21st.

Most popular posts:

#1 My most popular post didn’t surprise me, it was the one where I correlated retraction rates in scientific journals with conservatives decreasing trust in science.  That one got linked to/reposted on quite a few blogs, so it didn’t surprise me too much.

#2 The second most popular is a little strange, I still haven’t figured out what key words keep leading people to my 4th of July post….most of that’s just a repost from the Census Bureau.

#3 My third most popular post is my feelings on the application of Title IX to STEM professions.  It’s pretty funny because that’s the only post I’ve ever done that my brother ever got actively upset at me over, and it ended up as required reading for a class at a community college in California on gender issues.  I considered emailing the professor to ask what the discussion around it was, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to that question.

The rest:

#4 5 Rules for Reading Scientific Papers Online
#5 Soviet Propaganda, Infographic Style
#6 Arguments and Discussions, learning the rules
#7 Mission Statement
#8 Rule 6D
#9 Are Republicans Stupid?
#10 Rule #6

#9 makes me laugh because “are republicans stupid” is actually the most popular search that brings people to my blog (excluding searches for my blog in particular)…I don’t think that post gives them what they’re looking for.  Relatedly “gas prices the day bush took office” also brings me some traffic.

I’m happy to report 4% of my traffic comes from Linux users (stay strong my friends!)

Most popular countries are:
USA
Russia
Canada
Iceland
France
UK
Indonesia
Ukraine
Germany
Australia

I suspect most of the Russia traffic is spammers, and probably Ukraine as well.  Not sure about the rest.

The correlation between the number of posts I put up in a month and the amount of traffic I get is .68, but it drops to .53 if I exclude March as a partial month.

I’d be interested to hear any thoughts on this, and as always any directions for the future!  Thank you all for making this an entertaining 200 posts, and I look forward to the next 200!

The Assistant Village Idiot is doing a series on fashionable politics. 

I had a rather entertaining post about doomsday prep all set for today, but then I looked at the calendar.

Six years ago today, at a trivia night, I got introduced to a guy who perfectly complemented my trivia strengths and weaknesses.  I knew I must get this delightful person (who could always remember who was in what movie, or what musician did what song and when) to be on my trivia team for as long as possible.  When he beat me at Trivial Pursuit, I knew I had to marry him.

The chances of love at first sight are small, and the chances of finding someone who would put up with someone who does literature searches and statistical breakdowns of optimal household and relationship management are even smaller, so I feel pretty darn lucky to have him in my life.

While the genders are reversed, I like the way this video puts it (linked to in case the embedding doesn’t work).
http://videosift.com/widget.js?video=226713&width=540&comments=15&minimized=1
Put more simply (from Andrew Gelman‘s whole post on the topic):
You are perfect; I’d make no substitutions
You remind me of my favorite distributions
With a shape and a scale that I find reliable
You’re as comforting as a two parameter Weibull
When I ask you a question and hope you answer truly
You speak as clearly as a draw from a Bernoulli
Your love of adventure is most influential
Just like the constant hazard of an exponential.
With so many moments, all full of fun,
You always integrate perfectly to one.


Love you honey!

It occurred to me recently that it’s a bit odd that most of my “real world” exposure to research comes in the form of the variety of clinical trials that go on around me on a regular basis, and yet I rarely comment on clinical trials.

This is probably because most clinical trials are a little dense to get through, and the results tend to be less interesting to people (it turns out the reuptake limitations actually weren’t as dramatic as they made them out to be!) and there’s rarely much media involvement to mix things up.

Anyway, I heard a tidbit recently about when to be suspicious of results of clinical trials that I thought I’d pass along.

In any trial assessing a new treatment/drug/etc vs a placebo, you would expect to see more dropouts in the “treated” arm of the study.  This, of course, is because most drugs/treatments have very real side effects that will bother people and cause them to drop out.  Therefore, if you see a trial where the dropout rate is higher in the placebo arm, you should be suspicious.  Placebo studies should almost always be blinded for the patients (and ideally for the providers), but if significantly more of those in the placebo arm drop out, you know this has gone wrong.  Patients don’t keep showing up if they know they’re not actually getting treated with anything…and once we’ve established that the patients know which arm of the study they’re in, the results become much less reliable.

I thought that was an interesting tidbit to keep in mind.

Do you like Johnny Cash?  Do you like data visualizations? Ever wondered how far he travels in “I’ve been everywhere man?”

The answer is 181075 kilometers.

Thank you internet.

FYI, I’m done with 75% of my Christmas shopping.  Still have to get a tree though.

For those of you not done yet, I’ll help you out with what to give me.   Here’s a whole list!  

And for my little genius baby, I’m thinking this “Outlier” bodysuit would be perfect….or perhaps a stuffed normal distribution?

Alright, enough shopping.  Need some entertainment?  Try the “thanks textbooks” tumblr. Featuring the best of the worst problems/examples/etc in textbooks.  Highlights in the commentary include “I’m less concerned with the question, “What does the scale read?”  and more concerned with the question, “Why the hell are we lubricating a hamster?”  and “Who has a “favorite” orange?  How long have you had this orange that you’ve bonded with it so much?  Who has an equation to calculate the weight of an orange?Is it your favorite because it happens to weigh nine pounds!?”