Tag: statistics
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Lucy Letby: another grave miscarriage of justice
On the 27th January 1591, a woman called Agnes Sampson from East Lothian, Scotland, was garrotted and burnt for the crime of witchcraft. She was accused of raising a storm to sink the ship transporting Princess Anne of Denmark to Scotland to marry King James VI. The ship safely docked in Norway and the King…
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Lucy Letby: did she get a fair trial?
In 2003 a Dutch nurse called Lucia de Berk was sentenced to life imprisonment for four murders and three attempted murders of patients in her care. It turned out to be a tragic miscarriage of justice and in 2010 she was freed after the Dutch Supreme Court reopened her case and exonerated her. The case…
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Bad science
I’ve just finished reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. It was published in 2008 but is still relevant today. Indeed I think it should be compulsory reading for high school students and all journalism undergraduates. There’s a fascinating chapter on the placebo effect, an eerily familiar chapter about the denial by some that HIV causes…
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Lies, damned lies and statistics
My mathematician husband often likes to use mathematics against me. For instance, he often says things like: I’m much more likely to die in a car crash than an earthquake or volcanic eruption. So what are the statistics? According to the Auckland Regional Council civil defence management page, there’s a 5% chance over any 50…
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