Posted by Nili
Believe it or not Nili is a big fan of math. Not that I sit around the house working out quadratic equations or playing around with polynomials, but I am the rare person who sees that in fact a lot of what we learned in high school does have everyday applications. It drives my wife crazy that I use math when hanging a picture for example.
Certainly, we all know that incorrect math can literally cause things to go off the rails. Counting ballots comes to mind. So does that unfortunate incident when NASA lost a Mars explorer (and billions of dollars) when some engineers were using the metric system and others were not. And the latest example comes from the CDC…
Reuters reported last week (and papers are now picking it up) that the CDC’s major 2000 study on the effects of obesity was wrong. Way off. Like 20% off. Why? A math error. This error is no small thing. This error caused shifts in funding priority and public health attention. It made the media report again and again that obesity would soon surpass tobacco as the nation’s leading cause of preventable death. Wrong wrong wrong.
It’s not that obesity is not a major health and social problem, it’s just that Nili has always believed that tobacco is a far worse problem, and has always bristled at comparisons between the two in the media and in the courtroom. And it turns out I was right.