Lyric © 2018
Lawrence M. Lesser
Inspired by the location of JSM 2019, Larry Lesser of The University of Texas at El Paso repurposed a #1 hit (“Annie’s Song”) by John Denver to teach how a sample survey can beat a census.
Don’t try for a census
when the best thing’s a sample.
But now how could a sample
surpass trying for all?
Well, samples are faster
(so less outdated data)
and samples are cheaper
(less workers to hire)!
Sometimes a census
simply can’t even be done:
If you needed a blood test,
should they take some or all?
If they crash-tested all cars,
they’d have no cars to sell you!
Just take a sample
from what is mixed well.
If the sample’s much smaller
than the whole population,
Then precision goals lean on
the sample size n,
Not the sampling fraction:
that is really amazing!
Don’t try for a census,
come sample instead!
You can hear the song on the CauseWeb website.
How do they expect people not to lie on census forms, or simply not return them? Forced surveys come with all types of biases and glitches: those who lie are statistically different from people who comply, just to give an example.