STATBUSTERSDoes Standing Lead to Weight Loss?A study says that standing for a quarter of the day reduces obesity—but cause and effect are not so clear.Andrew Gelman
Basic MathHow Effective Are Anti-Smoking Ads?Joel Keller recently ranted about ‘inefficient’ anti-smoking ad campaigns. Here’s what he gets wrong about the bottom line.Andrew Gelman
StatbustersHow Big Pharma Games the Placebo EffectRandomized controlled trials are supposed to be the gold standard of drug testing—but companies can easily tweak the system in their favor. Andrew Gelman
WAR OF WORDSTa-Nehisi, David Brooks, and Street CodeBrooks’s belligerent column about Coates’s new book could just as well have been talking about his own theory of journalism.Andrew Gelman
STATBUSTERSDebunking the Great Selfie Death MythWhen it comes to which is more deadly—selfies or shark attacks—no analysis would have been better than a bad analysis.Andrew Gelman
Artificial SimulationIs Google Rigging 2016? Not So Fast.A claim in a recent Politico article that undecided voters can ‘easily’ be shifted by ‘20 percent or more’ seems ridiculous on its face. We dug a little deeper.Andrew Gelman
StatbustersThere Are Infinite Types of Drunk PeopleA study identifying four types of drinkers messes up its science.Andrew Gelman
STATBUSTERSHow the Media #Fails Basic MathDebunking China’s ‘4,000 air-pollution deaths a day’ myth and other media math flubs.Andrew Gelman
STATBUSTERSThe Truth About Post-Ferguson Gun DeathsHow media bias skews the facts on gun violence and police line-of-duty deaths since Ferguson. Andrew Gelman
StatbustersBanks Want Robots to Do Their HiringCan software perform better than humans on matters of hiring and retaining employees? Andrew Gelman
