Thursday, August 13, 2009

Limited power

I first came across Andrew Gelman's name because he co-wrote a book called 'Red State, Blue State'. I'm interested in politics and follow a few bloggers I think are smart---funny that they all turn out to be "progressives." What are the chances?

I haven't read that book, though I do have a book of his with ideas for teaching Statistics, and I aspire to read his book on Bayesian Analysis. He also has a blog.

Anyway, somewhere I came across an article of his on the web (pdf). It's an analysis prompted by the publication of a set of articles in the Journal of Theoretical Biology with titles such as "Beautiful Parents Have More Daughters," that are (as you might guess by this point) fatally flawed. It's a great read.