卧底经济学 的作者 Tim Harford

对此诗歌给与极为正面的评价:

China’s official statisticians are not the only ones facing scepticism. In the UK, only 36 per cent of people believe that official figures are generally accurate. This is, however, an official figure, so 64 per cent of us would hesitate before placing much confidence in it.

“Some mock me for doing statistics/ Some loathe me and statistics”, writes China’s poet-statistician, but our relationship with statistics is more complex. We feel that no argument is complete without a gesture towards the data, yet few of us understand how they are compiled. We sense – rightly – that statistics are often abused through ignorance, or manipulated.

I am a non-statistician who deals with statistics and statisticians frequently, and in my view statisticians are unsung heroes. Statistics are essential to understanding the world, but statisticians get little credit. We accept the numbers in the news as fact, without considering the skill in producing them from small, non-representative samples.

The most striking statistical story I came across this year was that adding statistical information to a charitable appeal reduces donations. It seems that merely reading a statistic makes us meaner.

This is the kind of obstacle statisticians must overcome. So sing out, poet-statisticians of China. Bean-counters of the world, unite!

hehe bu cuo a

诗写得不错！哈哈~~~

就连华尔街日报也对这个诗歌有所关注:

Who says statistics aren’t fun?

As part of the myriad activities planned to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, the normally staid National Bureau of Statistics is letting its hair down a bit.

The NBS has launched a call for submissions of writings celebrating the PRC’s big birthday as part of campaign called “Statistical Feelings: Together We Go – Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of New China.” The campaign is intended to boost the patriotic feelings and confidence of statisticians in their work, according to the bureau’s Web site. Submissions should reflect on the development of the nation over the past six decades, discuss the role of statistics in national development and express the feelings of statistics workers towards this period in history in 3000 characters or less. All of China’s current and former statistics workers are invited to submit entries by email. As an added incentive, contributors whose work is selected for publication on the NBS Web site will receive an unspecified amount of “generous compensation.”

So far, about a dozen entries have been posted, encompassing the genres of prose, poetry and song. One essay, submitted by an employee of the NBS industrial division, is titled “I Am Proud to Be a Brick in the Statistics Building of the PRC,” and reads like a prose poem, each paragraph leading with the title’s refrain.

A poem, “Love the Homeland, Love Statistics,” includes the following stanza:

Life
Some mock me for doing statistics
Some loathe me and statistics
Some don’t understand what statistics are
Why is it that statistics
Put a calm smile on my face?
Because of statistics
I can solve the deepest mysteries
Because of statistics
I will not be lonely again, playing in the data
Because of statistics
I can rearrange the stars in the skies above
Because of statistics
My life is different, more meaningful
I love my life, my statistics

Our favorite submission (so far) is the amusingly titled, “Celebration – Statistics Carol,” which inevitably brings to mind a troupe of buttoned down statisticians, going from door to door on the evening of Sept. 30, singing their praises to numbers and the motherland.

–Sky Canaves

有意思 111