[HN Gopher] Storks Deliver Babies (p= 0.008) (2000) [pdf]
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Storks Deliver Babies (p= 0.008) (2000) [pdf]
        
       Author : WayToDoor
       Score  : 87 points
       Date   : 2022-02-13 17:43 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (web.archive.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (web.archive.org)
        
       | okl wrote:
       | Related: "The ASA Statement on p-Values: Context, Process, and
       | Purpose"
       | 
       | - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00031305.2016.1...
       | 
       | - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30324223
        
       | bruce343434 wrote:
       | Is it just me or is this article unreadable due to the atrocious
       | typesetting? All the letters overlap.
        
         | TYMorningCoffee wrote:
         | My Firefox built in pdf viewer does not overlap the letters.
         | Download the pdf and try another viewer.
        
       | jeffmh wrote:
       | I only see the first page when I click the article link. I found
       | the full text online here:
       | https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert-Matthews-2/publi...
        
         | zinekeller wrote:
         | Something wrong with your reader? It loaded normally for me.
        
           | irrational wrote:
           | It didn't work for me either. Safari on iOS.
        
         | renewiltord wrote:
         | Thank you. I had the same problem on Chrome on ios.
        
           | jeffmh wrote:
           | Interesting. Must be a WebKit issue - I'm running safari on
           | iOS
        
         | apollo1213 wrote:
         | I cannot view it directly in firefox.
         | 
         | A direct view link in browser:
         | https://docmadeeasy.com/v/266959716
        
       | tapland wrote:
       | I doubt storks care about national borders and this should
       | probably be repeated using birth rates in general areas around
       | stork populations ;)
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Past related thread:
       | 
       |  _Storks Deliver Babies (p= 0.008)_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24700606 - Oct 2020 (58
       | comments)
        
       | xiphias2 wrote:
       | I wouldn't trust this article. How can only be 1 pair of storks
       | in Belgium, while 5000 pairs in Hungary? I think the article
       | needs better peer review before I accept the fact that storks
       | deliver babies.
        
         | shalmanese wrote:
         | You're right, the only thing we can logically conclude from
         | this study is that the number of storks known to humans
         | correlates with birth rates, leading to the obvious conclusion
         | that countries which are better at finding storks are also
         | better at having procreative sex, probably due to the close
         | similarity between the two behaviors.
        
       | 6gb wrote:
       | Reminded me of this: https://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
        
       | unhammer wrote:
       | Another good resource on how (not) to mess up statistics is
       | https://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/
        
       | ajuc wrote:
       | The confounding variable is how developed a country is.
       | 
       | It negatively influences both stork pairs (storks in Europe
       | mostly live in old-style individual farming countryside) and
       | birth rates.
        
         | HPsquared wrote:
         | The human birth rate also declines the more developed a country
         | is (per person, at least)
        
         | pyuser583 wrote:
         | The confounding variable is how large a country is (both size
         | and population - two variables that are themselves related).
         | 
         | The papers "birth rate" is absolute: thousands of births per
         | year in that country. It should be number of births per woman
         | of childbearing years.
         | 
         | Likewise, the number of stork pairs is the absolute number in
         | the country. It should be absolute number per square kilometer,
         | or per square kilometer of stork habitat.
         | 
         | A geographically larger country will (generally) have more
         | people and more storks.
         | 
         | Edit: there are also some outliers heavily influencing things:
         | Poland and Turkey have tons of storks. Belgium, Denmark,
         | Holland, and Switzerland don't seem to have native storks.
        
           | ajuc wrote:
           | > Poland and Turkey have tons of storks. Belgium, Denmark,
           | Holland, and Switzerland don't seem to have native storks.
           | 
           | This is the development factor I wrote about :) Storks in
           | Europe live in symbiosis with individual farmers. As
           | countries switch from millions of small farmers to thousands
           | of massive industrialized farms - stork populations dwindle.
           | 
           | This is how it looks like: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star
           | y_Brus#/media/Plik:Stary_B...
           | 
           | Almost every house has its stork nest, people provide the
           | scaffolding for the nest (usually on the house roof or on
           | powerline pylons). Storks eat small rodents, insects and
           | other pests (for example whenever farmers are plowing storks
           | go behind the tractor and eat larva that are uncovered).
        
           | tapland wrote:
           | Storks in Denmark have dwindled to 1-2 pairs from a larger
           | population.
           | 
           | This is of course also projected in the birth rate:
           | https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/DNK/denmark/birth-rate
        
       | chinchilla2020 wrote:
       | A hypothesis test allows us to say we rejected the null
       | hypothesis.
       | 
       | It doesn't prove anything else besides that.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | jdrc wrote:
        
       | Sindisil wrote:
       | Related: Lack of pirates is causing global warming:
       | 
       | https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2012/03/23/true-f...
        
         | sharkweek wrote:
         | Hah! I love this kind of stuff
         | 
         | REPORT: Average human has less than two arms
        
           | PeterisP wrote:
           | The average human has approximately one testicle and one
           | boob.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | bryanrasmussen wrote:
           | well, sure, after sharkweek!
        
             | qznc wrote:
             | There are no humans with three or more arms. Most humans
             | have two arms. A few humans have one or zero arms. Thus,
             | the mean/average number of arms should be between 1.9 and
             | 2.0 but surely less then two.
             | 
             | (The median number of arms is two though)
        
               | bryanrasmussen wrote:
               | first, I am aware of the stats so the lecture was a
               | waste.
               | 
               | second, the posters name was sharkweek, if you went in
               | the water during sharkweek you probably wouldn't have two
               | arms, this is what is known as a joke based on an
               | eponysterical name.
               | 
               | third, you are also incorrect in your statement that
               | there are no humans with 3 arms
               | https://www.google.com/search?q=baby+born+with+three+arms
        
               | Johnny555 wrote:
               | _There are no humans with three or more arms_
               | 
               | Never say never:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymelia
        
               | vaylian wrote:
               | > Never say never:
               | 
               | Especially on the internet
        
               | anotheraccount9 wrote:
               | Prove it.
        
           | Swizec wrote:
           | Average human has more than 1 skeleton!
           | 
           | (pregnancy)
        
       | jmmcd wrote:
       | This is rather silly (and not in the way intended).
       | 
       | The goal of the paper is to demonstrate a strong linear
       | correlation which arises without a trivial confounder (such as
       | age influencing both reading age and shoe size in children).
       | However, the confounder in the case of storks (country land area
       | influences number of storks and absolute number of births) IS
       | trivial.
        
         | OJFord wrote:
         | > One candidate for a potential confounding variable is land
         | area: readers are invited to investigate this possibility using
         | the data in table 1.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-02-13 23:00 UTC)