Statwing is awarding $1,500 for the best insights from its massive social science dataset by Derrick Harris.
All submissions are due through the form on this page by January 30 at 11:59pm PST.
From the post:
Statistics startup Statwing has kicked off a competition to find the best insights from a 406-variable social science dataset. Entries will be voted on by the crowd, with the winner getting $1,000, second place getting $300 and third place getting $200. (Check out all the rules on the Statwing site.) Even if you don’t win, though, it’s a fun dataset to play with.
The data comes from the General Social Survey and dates back to 1972. It contains variables ranging from sex to feelings about education funding, from education level to whether respondents think homosexual men make good parents. I spent about an hour slicing and dicing variable within the Statwing service, and found some at least marginally interesting stuff. Contest entries can use whatever tools they want, and all 79 megabytes and 39,662 rows are downloadable from the contest page.
Time is short so you better start working.
The rules page, where you make your submission, emphasizes:
Note that this is a competition for the most interesting finding(s), not the best visualization.
Use any tool or method, just find the “most interesting finding(s)” as determined by crowd vote.
On the dataset:
Every other year since 1972, the General Social Survey (GSS) has asked thousands of Americans 90 minutes of questions about religion, culture, beliefs, sex, politics, family, and a lot more. The resulting dataset has been cited by more than 14,000 academic papers, books, and dissertations—more than any except the U.S. Census.
I can’t decide if Americans have more odd opinions now than before. 😉
Maybe some number crunching will help with that question.
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