whatweneedmoreofisscience Page index.xml - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
How Readable Are Bill Simmons, Jason Whitlock, Rick Reilly, And Other Sportswriters? Science Investigates
The last time we played around with sportswriter analytics, we wondered if we could algorithmically determine a column's author based on his favorite words. (We could!) For a followup, I decided to look at the readability of different writers. Reading level is a nebulous concept and hard to define p...
Erick Dampier Is Literally A Textbook Example Of Irrational Behavior
In general, I don't give Erick Dampier much thought, and I'm guessing neither do you. He is far from an NBA superstar, and if he's at all memorable, it's only for having once been memorably overpaid....
How Many Times Have We Farted In Human History? A Very Rough Calculation
I was sitting next to my friend on a bus the other day. He farted. It got us thinking: How many farts have there been in human history?...
Was Scott Howard Actually Better Than Teen Wolf? A Statistical Investigation
This is Regressing, a numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective. Over the past week, they've been applying rigorous statistical analysis to some of the finest basketball movies in the history of cinema (and also Hoosiers). The series concludes wi...
Calculating The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air's Usage Rate, And What It Can Tell Us About Ball Hogs
This is Regressing, a numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective. Over the next few days, they'll be applying rigorous statistical analysis to some of the finest basketball movies in the history of cinema (and also Hoosiers). Today we have some b...
It’d Take Trey Parker A Million Years To Lose, And Other Statistical Oddities Of <em>BASEketball</em>
This is Regressing, a numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective. Over the next few days, they'll be applying rigorous statistical analysis to some of the finest basketball movies in the history of cinema (and also Hoosiers). Today: The offensivel...
Compiling The Absurd Box Score For <em>Space Jam</em>; Or, Shawn Bradley Sucked Against Cartoons, Too
This is Regressing, a numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective. Over the next few days, they'll be applying rigorous statistical analysis to some of the finest basketball movies in the history of cinema (and also Hoosiers). Today: Space Jam by t...
An Advanced Statistical Analysis Of Jimmy Chitwood's Basketball Performance In <em>Hoosiers</em>
This is Regressing, a numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective. Over the next few days, they'll be applying rigorous statistical analysis to some of the finest basketball movies in the history of cinema (and also Hoosiers). Today: Calculating Ji...
Six Degrees Of NBA Separation; Or, Why Buddha Is The Center Of The Basketball Universe
This is Regressing, a numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective. Today: Connecting Blake Griffin and Charlie Parsley in eight easy steps....
The Smart Way To Expand The NFL Season: 18 Weeks, Not 18 Games
This is Regressing, a numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective. Today: Why a second bye week makes sense....
How The NBA Ruined The H-O-R-S-E Competition
This is Regressing, a numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective. Today: The NBA's H-O-R-S-E competition was doomed to fail....
How Much Does NFL Seeding Really Matter?
This is Regressing, a new, numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective. Today: Why it's good to be king of the regular season....
Why There Are More .300 Hitters Than .299 Hitters, And Why It Matters
Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim, authors of the Freakonomically inclined Scorecasting, explore the peculiar power of round-number milestones and how they affect a ballplayer at the plate....
On Sunday, We're All Going To Eat Guacamole, Use The Bathroom, And Beat Our Wives
There's a new study claiming heart attacks skyrocket after the Super Bowl. Sounds plausible, but if it's anything like all the other things we "know" happen more on Super Bowl Sunday, take it with a grain of salt, i.e., it's completely bull....
Atlanta Braves Fans Are Filthier Than The Guys Using The John In Penn Station, Science Proves
"Only about two-thirds of the men observed washed their hands after using the restroom at Turner Field — the lowest rate for any of the locations cited in the observational study and survey on the hand-washing habits of Americans."...
Science Wins Again: Heavy Drinkers Live Longer
Hey teetotalers: not only are you a drag, you're going to die younger. Live slow, die fast, jerks....
Lucky Underwear Will Save Us All
Science has finally proven that Jason Giambi's slump-busting thong is not weird, but a legitimate form of slump-busting. Thank you, science, for making us all picture Jason Giambi in a thong again. [Well]...
Science: Skateboarders Get Measurably Gnarlier In The Presence Of Pretty Ladies
Researchers measured skateboarders after every move, and "consistent with predictions, the young men had higher testosterone levels and took bigger risks when good-looking women were watching." [Miller-McCune]...
Study Of Most Loved, Loathed Baseball Teams On Internet Fails To Account For Actual Internet
Remember that totally, rigorously, kite-flyingly super-scientific Nielsen Co. study of the most loved and hated teams in baseball, according to the internet? The one that concluded that everyone loves the Giants and hates the Indians? Yeah, one problem:...
Basketball Players Should Touch Each Other More Often, Science Urges
Scientists, those smart people who split the atom and cured polio, have charted hugs and high fives for every NBA team and concluded that, as The New York Times puts it, "good teams tended to be touchier than bad ones."...