{"id":25109,"date":"2018-02-03T20:09:40","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T01:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=25109"},"modified":"2018-02-03T22:14:46","modified_gmt":"2018-02-04T03:14:46","slug":"flu-vaccine-half-a-statistic-is-worse-than-none","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2018\/02\/03\/flu-vaccine-half-a-statistic-is-worse-than-none\/","title":{"rendered":"Flu Vaccine: Half a Statistic Is Worse Than None"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>NBC Nightly News<\/em> had a story <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/nightly-news\/video\/growing-concern-over-children-dying-of-the-flu-1153159747902\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Growing concern over children dying of the flu<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\">\n    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/widget\/video-embed\/1153159747902\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" style=\"border:thick ridge #009900;\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<pre \/class=\"plain\">\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>There is one statement in the report that is a perfect example of how the media mislead you with half a statistic.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\">\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ChildrenDyingOfFlu.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"99%\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25110\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ChildrenDyingOfFlu.png 1164w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ChildrenDyingOfFlu-150x77.png 150w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ChildrenDyingOfFlu-300x154.png 300w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ChildrenDyingOfFlu-768x395.png 768w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ChildrenDyingOfFlu-1024x526.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1164px) 100vw, 1164px\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<p>The report never told you what this number means.  What did they expect you to learn from this?  I can think of three possible conclusions you could take depending on what is the value of the statistic they did not report.  What they failed to report was what percentage of the children who survived were never vaccinated.<\/p>\n<p>In the figures below I have chosen three possible values for the missing statistics of the percentage of children who were not vaccinated that survived.  Above each graph, I have put a label of what you might be able to conclude given any one of the green bars compared to the red bar.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\">\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"99%\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25129\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-1.png 1084w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-1-150x47.png 150w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-1-300x95.png 300w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-1-768x243.png 768w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-1-1024x324.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1084px) 100vw, 1084px\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the above figure, of the children who survived they had a lower percentage of not being vaccinated so you might conclude there was an advantage to being vaccinated. <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\">\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"99%\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25126\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-2.png 1011w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-2-150x40.png 150w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-2-300x80.png 300w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-2-768x206.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1011px) 100vw, 1011px\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the above figure, of the children who survived they had the same percentage of not being vaccinated so you might conclude there was neither an advantage nor a disadvantage to being vaccinated. <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\">\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"99% class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25130\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-3.png 1084w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-3-150x47.png 150w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-3-300x95.png 300w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-3-768x242.png 768w, https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ComparisonOfStatistics-3-1024x323.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1084px) 100vw, 1084px\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the above figure, of the children who survived they had a higher percentage of not being vaccinated so you might conclude there was a disadvantage to being vaccinated.<\/p>\n<p>Without seeing a green bar, there is nothing you can conclude from seeing the red bar alone. You might have concluded that certainly the vaccine had whatever advantage or disadvantage you had assumed before seeing the number.  In other words, this half statistic may  have made you more sure of the wrong thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NBC Nightly News had a story Growing concern over children dying of the flu. There is one statement in the report that is a perfect example of how the media mislead you with half a statistic. The report never told you what this number means. What did they expect you to learn from this? I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-25109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-greenbergs-law-of-the-media","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25109"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25135,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25109\/revisions\/25135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}