Carl Bialik reports on a website called the Book of Odds (really, as Carl points out, these are probabilities, not odds, but that’s not such a problem because, at least to me, probabilities are much more understandable than odds anyway). It’s pretty cool. I could give some examples here but I encourage you to just go to the site yourself and check it out. One thing I really like is that it gives the source of every number: right on the page it gives the country and date of the information, then you can click to get the details. Awesome.
The only thing that bothers me a little bit about the site is that it is almost too professional. When something’s that slick, I worry about whether I can trust them.
In contrast, Nate Silver’s website is respected but not particularly attractive. And the NameVoyager is just the coolest thing in the world, and, yes, it’s professional and it’s commercial–that’s fine–but it doesn’t have the suspicion-inducing hyper-professionalism of the Book of Odds. Seeing the all-so-appealing photo of the bright-eyed oldsters illustrating the “Will you live to be 100?” item that’s currently featured on the site’s main page, I just think–this is too slick to be trusted. (In case you’re wondering, their data say that a randomly-chosen 90-year-old has only a 1-in-9 chance of living to 100. Actually, they say 1 in 8.85, but you know what I think about extra decimal points.)
In some way I prefer the charmingly and unabashedly commercial OK Cupid site to the Book of Odds, which looks so, so commercial but claims only purely altruistic goals. I just don’t know what to think.
Anyway, whatever the true story happens to be, it’s great stuff. Fun to browse, and a great teaching tool too, I’d think. Enjoy.
I saw this on the Book of Odds: "The odds a man will attend an NFL game in a year are 1 in 10.76 (US, 2005)." That seems a bit high to me. There are about 100 million men in the US, and it looks like total attendance was about 550,000 for the home games of 30 teams. Assuming 70% of these are men that means 11.5 million male-occupied seats. I suppose that's close, but it assumes no one goes to more than one game.
It’s actually a book of frequencies. The amount of muddleheaded thinking which could be avoided by calling it that is simply enormous.
Incidentally, I’ve found that most laymen understand odds ratios far easier than probabilities.
Andrew,
Appreciate the write-up. Especially the note about our citations – something we've really labored over. We'll soon be linking to every cited data source from the Odds Statement page. So, if we've gotten something wrong, our users can tell us.
Interesting points about the design. We hope to create something that is, above all, useful to people. So I hope your reaction to the site design will not keep you from coming back. With it we're attempting to strike a balance between modern web 2.0, with all its gadgets and style, and the look of a traditional reference work, straightforward, crisp, and easy to navigate. I doubt we've nailed that balance on the first attempt, but we'll keep working on it.
I've not seen your blog before today. Looks like it's right up my alley. Cheers.
Here are some more sample odds statements via the company's twitter account:
The odds a person aged 13 or older will be diagnosed with HIV in a year are 1 in 4,389 (US, 2006).
The odds an accidental death will be due to a fall down stairs are 1 in 68.41 (US, 1999 – 2005).
Odds an adult using a public restroom was observed not washing their hands are 1 in 4.37.
The odds a child younger than 18 has ever been diagnosed with ADHD are 1 in 3.6 (US, 2007).
The odds a wildfire in Southern California is started by humans are 1 in 1.11.
The odds a person 18 or older will drink any type of coffee in a day are 1 in 1.75.
It's more likely that a pilot or crew member has nodded off during a flight than it is for a child to live with two parents.
If it's mostly the slickness of the photos that bothers you, don't worry… they seem to be mostly from IStockPhoto, which is a pretty standard source of intentionally slick photos. Even searching for "mathematics" on istockphoto.com gets you over-the-top glossy images of chalky blackboards and smiling kids:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action…
So I don't mind the photos. The fact that Book of Odds meticulously list their sources is what makes me believe they are the real deal, which is awesome.
Looks interesting, but they do this:
"1 in 23,180,000
The odds a person will be injured by a hurricane in a year are 1 in 23,180,000 (US, 2007)."
That is a personal bugaboo for me in the way these things are given. They mean any given person. The odds that some person will be injured is pretty close to 1:1. I have always read "a person" as "any person" or "some indefinite person". Otherwise everything seems cool.
Very interesting …
The odds an accidental death will be due to being bitten or struck by an alligator are 1 in 104,600 (US, 1999 – 2005)
Totally random though
Of course I immediately went for:
"The odds an ever-married or cohabiting man has cheated during the relationship are 1 in 4.76"
(1 in 9.09 for women) which after "odds that it was the milkman" is life's most important probability ratio. There's a lot of good sex stats, but I have to say, several pages of this stuff could be conveyed with a single graph.