Category: statistics
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Implicit Bias and the NFL Draft: Are Teams Under Drafting Non-White Quarterbacks?
The 2021 NFL Draft is next week. And, as is often the case, quarterbacks are expected to be drafted highly and dominate the narrative. In a game with 22 starters (plus kickers and punters!) quarterbacks routinely dominate the top selections of the NFL Draft. And it makes sense. If you land a quality quarterback, you’re…
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Just how silly is a 45-day weather forecast? And while we’re at it, just how good is a 2-day forecast?
Artifact I’ve got bad news for everyone here in the Fort Collins area: there’s a chance of showers on Labor Day (September 2). It’s a shame because the following Monday (September 9) shows a mostly sunny day, with a high of 77 degrees. (I am writing this on August 8.) Seriously, AccuWeather? Yes, AccuWeather is…
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How does one provide the complex data of global warming to students?
Update (3/12/2013): An atmospheric scientist friend of mine, Katie, suggested a few edits to this post, primarily to clear up a few of the tools listed here. The edits are in bold. My initial thesis on this post was originally going to be “why don’t teachers let students investigate global warming very often?” While this…
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Who doesn’t want to relive the 2000 election? (Stats problem)
We’ll take a slight detour from my college readiness manifesto (that hasn’t even really started yet) to bring you the following election-related problem. Then again, this problem was lifted directly from a graduate level Statistics class, so this might give some insight into what college readiness could potentially look like. Hadn’t thought of that. Enjoy!…
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Why doesn’t Nike+ use math to encourage me to run?
Artifact The Nike+ app, which at the end of my run the other day, looked like this: (editor’s note: yes, I’m slow. Thank you for noticing. Also, along with some encouragement in data format, I had Tim Tebow give me words of encouragement for bettering my pace.) Now, there are a lot of numbers here, but…
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Attention Math Teachers: Slate has graciously discovered your next project
Slate.com’s always entertaining “The Explainer” segment runs an always-even-more entertaining year-end segment on the Unanswered Questions of the Year in which readers are prompted to vote on the question to be answered (aside: say, that’s a pretty awesome activity for a classroom. Students in the middle of a Problem vote on the question the teacher…
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Do NFL teams actually use that draft pick chart when trading draft picks?
The 2011 National Football League draft of players is tomorrow, and I was inspired by a really interesting post over on Mr. Honner’s blog regarding the NFL Draft Pick Trade Value chart and exponential decay. The gist is this: somewhere, sometime, someone came up with a chart that assigned a numerical value to every pick…
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The Dallas Mavericks are 2-16 in playoff games officiated by Danny Crawford. Is this statistically significant?
Artifact. This shocked me. The Mavs have a 2-16 record in playoff games officiated by Crawford, including 16 losses in the last 17 games. Dallas is 48-41 in the rest of their playoff games during the ownership tenure of Mark Cuban, who has been fined millions of dollars in the last 11 years for publicly…
emergent math 