About
In Brief
I’m Dave, and this is my data analysis blog. I examine data covering a wide range of psychological phenomena, from price theory to baby names. Basically any data having to do with people’s behavior is fair game. So, hopefully by reading this site you’ll find out a little bit more about people and a little bit more about yourself. I make any data I use publicly available here (if possible) and I openly encourage other people to debate and challenge my analyzes.
That’s because I plan to blame any sizable mistakes I make on my identical twin brother Ed.
The Longer Version
(This is a repost of my my first post)
Hello, I’m Dave Younskevicius. Welcome to my blog.
Here you should find meaningful stories about interesting data sets. That’s my goal, at least. Of course, it’s also a vague goal.
Let me be more specific. By “meaningful stories” I mean stories about data that are accessible and that will (hopefully) pique your curiosity. By “interesting data sets” I mean data sets about things I care about that you might care about too.
I’m sure you don’t want to read me spouting off opinions all the time. That’s why analysis and data will be equal partners here. Telling good stories about data requires interpretation as well as good sources.
You might wonder if there are “good stories” about data. Some people loathe number crunching, statistics, and data analysis. Or they’re intimidated by it. Or they think it’s boring. I can understand any of those viewpoints. Lots of data analysis is loathsome, intimidating, or boring. But it doesn’t have to be. There are no bad data, just bad stories.
Now I’ll admit that some some data is easier to tell stories about than others. That’s where interpretation comes in. With a keen eye and bit of elbow grease, you can tell a fine tale about something as innocuous as a list of numbers. And what kinds of data are you likely to see here, you might wonder? Probably the kinds of data that I read about a lot. Data relating to psychological studies, economic behavior, language usage, employment data and the like. In short, data about people, what they like to do, and why they do it. You’re not going to see an analysis of an corporate annual report here, or the average tail length of a Quoll. My goal is to understand people better, through data.
But obviously I’m not posting here in a vaccuum. I hope some of you will examine the data sets I post here and come up with your own conclusions. I would love for some of you to share your thoughts with me and come up with alternate interpretations. Learning is a two-way street, after all.