Statistical construction error

August 20, 2011

Yes, the title is meant to have two readings.

The effect

The Numbers Guy, among other examples, talks about the UK Office for National Statistics needing to revise its estimate for the construction sector output because of an error.

Original: 2.3% growth

Corrected: 0.5% growth

Here is the Telegraph article cited by The Numbers Guy.

The cause

The spreadsheet that is used to calculate the statistic was not updated properly.

Questions

Have they not read “Spreadsheet Addiction”?

Why are they not using R?

Does this scare anybody else?

Epilogue

Who would take the repercussions when the bottle is to blame?

from “Down the Mountain” by Robin E. Contreras

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