Links to a couple of articles and blog posts that discusses mathematics and statistics in the news;
Putting a Number on Happiness- The Numbers Guy.
More on the Happy Planet Index.
"The 200,000 people of Vanuatu -- a South Pacific nation composed of 83 islands, with an agricultural economy and corporate headquarters of file-sharing service Kazaa -- are the happiest on earth, according to a wave of recent articles….The problem is, no one has asked Vanuatuans how happy they are. The ranking was based on extrapolating happiness levels from other countries."
I'm told that in Bhutan for the census they include a question on happiness. From a small sample of people I've met Bhutanese seem more happy than the one Vanuatuan I've met.
Cheney's One Percent Doctrine- John Allen Paulos
"Suskind describes the Cheney doctrine as follows: "Even if there's just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty. It's not about 'our analysis,' as Cheney said. It's about 'our response.' … Justified or not, fact-based or not, 'our response' is what matters. As to 'evidence,' the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn't apply."
How a statistical formula won the war (via The Amateur Economist)
