I was doing some research this weekend on the Birthday Problem (for a later post), and it made me think about statistics. Contrary to the title of this post, I don't want to get into a discussion about whether statistics are used to manipulate the public, or whether they are misleading. Instead, I thought I'd point out two cool facts (stats?) that I found out this weekend.
- The 4th most populous country is Indonesia (2007 Estimated Population: 234 million). This explains how Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population.
- In the US, there are a lot of unmarried women giving birth (at least, compared to what I would have guessed). In 2005, 36.9% of babies were born to unmarried women. [1]
And of course, I can't finish without making fun of abstinence education. If I had to guess, the states with the highest teenage birth rates are the same ones teaching abstinence in schools. (Of course, this comes full circle to damned lies, since the high teenage birth rate could also be correlated to a lack of social acceptance of abortion, or other factors. )
[1] CDC National Vital Statistics Report - Vol 56, Num 6.
3 comments:
Is it me or does that graph seem to indicate a correlation between temperature and teenage pregnancy? As you move north, the rates seem to go down, and vice-versa for the south -- I would've guessed the opposite, that cold weather would lead to more pregnancy. Shows how much I know ...
It's definitely not what I was expecting (temperature-wise)! As an aside, it's important to point out that this graph is for births, not pregnancies.
When it's warmer, you strip. When it's cold, you keep your clothes ON!
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