06Jun / 2022

Cancer and statistics

Hannah Fry works with statistics and risk, but her perspective changed when she was diagnosed with cancer. Fry documented the experience and it’s available on BBC:

Hannah Fry, a professor of maths, is used to investigating the world around her through numbers. When she’s diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 36, she starts to interrogate the way we diagnose and treat cancer by digging into the statistics to ask whether we are making the right choices in how we treat this disease. Are we sometimes too quick to screen and treat cancer? Do doctors always speak to us honestly about the subject? It may seem like a dangerous question to ask, but are we at risk of overmedicalising cancer?

At the same time, Hannah records her own cancer journey in raw and emotional personal footage, where the realities of life after a cancer diagnosis are laid bare.

You can only watch the film in the UK for now, but she spoke about the topic on the Numberphile podcast. Worth a listen.

Tags: cancer, Hannah Fry, Numberphile, risk

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22Mar / 2021

Statistical limits

Reviewing Deborah Stone’s Counting and Tim Harford’s The Data Detective, Hannah Fry discusses the usefulness of data and its limitations for The New Yorker:

Numbers are a poor substitute for the richness and color of the real world. It might seem odd that a professional mathematician (like me) or economist (like Harford) would work to convince you of this fact. But to recognize the limitations of a data-driven view of reality is not to downplay its might. It’s possible for two things to be true: for numbers to come up short before the nuances of reality, while also being the most powerful instrument we have when it comes to understanding that reality.

This builds on Fry’s similarly themed article from a couple of years ago, as well as her book Hello World.

Data is limited, and the better we understand those limitations, the better use we can get out of what’s there.

Tags: Hannah Fry, limitations

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04Sep / 2019

Useful and not so useful Statistics

Hannah Fry, for The New Yorker, describes the puzzle of Statistics to analyze general patterns used to make decisions for individuals:

There is so much that, on an individual level, we don’t know: why some people can smoke and avoid lung cancer; why one identical twin will remain healthy while the other develops a disease like A.L.S.; why some otherwise similar children flourish at school while others flounder. Despite the grand promises of Big Data, uncertainty remains so abundant that specific human lives remain boundlessly unpredictable. Perhaps the most successful prediction engine of the Big Data era, at least in financial terms, is the Amazon recommendation algorithm. It’s a gigantic statistical machine worth a huge sum to the company. Also, it’s wrong most of the time.

Be sure to read this one. I especially liked the examples used to explain statistical concepts that sometimes feel mechanical in stat 101.

Tags: Hannah Fry, New Yorker, uncertainty

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17Feb / 2016

Math of crime and terrorism

Numberphile, from the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, is one my new favorite YouTube channels. In this episode, Hannah Fry talks crime, data, and the Poisson distribution.

[Thanks, Mike]

Tags: crime, Hannah Fry, Numberphile

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11Mar / 2015

Mathematics of love

Mathematician Hannah Fry talks about love in terms of three "mathematically verifiable" tips: how to win at online dating, when to marry, and how to avoid divorce.