Wade's "After outcry, Puerto Rico’s legislature spares statistical agency"

As described here, legislatures in Puerto Rico attempted to take independent authority away from the Puetero Rican Institute of Statistics (PRIS), a governmental watch dog in charge of double checking statistics and research methods used by the government. This decision was made in order to streamline government, which is understandable. But it was also problematic because watchdogs need independence in order to have the power and safety to say unpopular things.

Anyway, the legislatures ended up NOT streamlining PRIS's and taking away its authority, in part due to an outcry from other scientific agencies.

How to use in class:

-Statistics in real life, informing decisions, informing funding, being controversial.
-Why do organizations like American Statistical Association and American Association for the Advancement of Science exist? Well, for a lot of reasons, one of which is to publicly protests moves like the one PR tried to execute.
-Statisticians and scientists aren't just sitting in front of computers all day. They serve as part of the checks and balances within our government.
-Soft sell: Look at the variety of statistics jobs out there! Collecting data, watching the data, double checking the data and research methodology associated with it.

Comments

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