Forget the Math — For Good Sampling You Need Equality, Inclusion, and Representation.

Forget the Math — For Good Sampling You Need Equality, Inclusion, and Representation

In basic stats class, all of us learned about the importance of random sampling. It provides the foundation for the iron-clad mathematics of estimation, statistical significance, and margins of error. But the problem in social science, market research, and opinion polling is that random sampling (sometimes referred to as probability sampling) almost never exists. So…

Data Geniuses Who Predict the Past

Data Geniuses Who Predict the Past

If there is one thing I hope you remember from your college statistics class, it’s this: Correlation does not imply causation. This is especially important to remember in our world of big data. Any large dataset will have hundreds of thousands of correlations, but most of those correlations will reflect purely random occurrences that mean…