I like that, except they've got hydrogen in sort of the wrong place. It really ought to be dead in the center, where the neutron is now.

Well, they say they did it that way for a reason:

[link]

Here's the actual page: [link]

There's no need for footnotes, and there's a convenient spot for neutronium (sometimes called "element zero" because it has no protons at all), which never found an appropriate perch in the old table.

How did it get to be almost noon so quickly?

Remember how time seems to slow in the afternoon from like 3 to 5 PM? That's because all the excess time between 10 AM and noon has slipped down there. It's not that every minute SEEMS twice as long then....

So I've skipped ahead to pose this plea to the hivemind (does one pose a plea? regardless):

I'm designing a(nother friggafrackin') lesson plan, this time inquiry based (not that I'm entirely certain what that means or whether what I've thought of fits the bill, especially since I apparently totally missed the boat with my last blood-sweat-and-tears lesson plan). Ahem. Leaving aside the bitterness for the moment, the lesson plan is on the importance of sample size and selection and various other things in surveys. Can anyone think of examples (preferably with Web links) of bad surveys/statistical interpretations? I'm going to discuss the World War I IQ tests (which apparently included such intelligence-challenging questions as "which automobile has an air-cooled engine?" and "what do you do if a grocer hands you back too much change?") as an example of the importance of what questions you ask, and I was thinking maybe about the "Dewey Defeats Truman" newspaper headline. Anything else? I don't need excessive documentation, as I'm not actually planning on teaching the lesson, but I'd like to include some references in my lesson plan.

Thanks, y'all.

Any survey on a webpage.

Can anyone think of examples (preferably with Web links) of bad surveys/statistical interpretations?

I heard this years ago, so no web link (sorry):

There was an intelligence test that asked what you should do if you're in line for something and someone cuts in front of you. The correct answer is that you should tell the person to get out of line. Supposedly, someone of Chinese background would do nothing, as s/he would assume that if someone cut in line they must have an important reason to do so.

Maybe you could google that, but it predates the widespread use of the internet, so probably not. But is that the sort of thing you're looking for?

I was reading something yesterday about a minimum wage study that would be good, if I could remember where it was. Let me see what I can find. Or that crappy bisexuality study that the Times wrote about a couple of weeks ago, but the subject matter might be dicey for your needs.

Shere Hite's "Women and Love" is often used to illustrate sampling problems (particularly with response rates). There's a pretty good overview here.

Emily, this is also historical/presidential election related, but here goes.

During the early 20th century, the Literary Digest regularly conducted a widely known and respected presidential poll based heavily on telephone books and auto registration. In 1936, this poll predicted that Republican Alf Landon would soundly defeat Democratic incumbent Franklin Roosevelt.

Roosevelt won in a landslide. In fact, Landon won only 2 states and 8 electoral votes. The problem? By emphasizing persons with phones and cars, the sample was badly skewed toward persons with higher incomes (i.e., more likely to vote Republican).

The Literary Digest went under not long after, and it's widely believed that the poll was responsible.

A little more on the subject

tommyrot, that would be good as another example of questions affecting conclusions -- I'll look for it. I'm also looking for examples of bad statistical methods -- surveys where they ask only union members in Massachusetts about their politics and then generalize to the United States, for example.