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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan

@lucystats.bsky.social
5.6K followers 178 following 334 posts

Biostatistician • Associate Prof @ Wake Forest University • former postdoc @ Hopkins Biostat • PhD @ Vandy Biostat • 🎙 Casual Inference • lucymcgowan.com

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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Mattan S. Ben-Shachar @mattansb.msbstats.info · 6h
This was so fun to to! And finally puts to rest the long lasting issue that has fractured society for so long - do different colored marshmallows actually taste different??
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 15h
static.klipy.com
Rumpelstiltskin: All Magic Comes With A Price
Alt: Rumpelstiltskin: All Magic Comes With A Price
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 15h
See more details here: regressiontothemeangirls.com/posts/06-the... And listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/7mcX...
Results showing when pink marshmallows are different people can tell
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 15h
🎙️ Today on Regression to the Mean Girls @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social & I chat with @mattansb.msbstats.info about a marshmallow test (no, not that one!) This ep has everything! Bayesian models! Food science! A twist at the end! Listen wherever you listen to podcasts!
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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Dr. Adam Stein @astein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Sophisticated statistics can produce extremely precise nonsense when the design fails to identify the causal mechanism.
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
What a bummer that our reality has shaped up to be even worse than Philip K Dick imagined 😬😬😬
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
static.klipy.com
Pacha's Perfect OK Gesture
Alt: Pacha's Perfect OK Gesture
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Down here it’s our time spring breakers
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Not any more! Give me deterministic or give me deathhhhh - Patrick Henry, probably
static.klipy.com
Jonah Hill No
ALT: Jonah Hill No
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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Thomas Lumley @tslumley.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The polite term "flawed" is part of the problem. Flawless trials are pretty rare (everything in clinical trials is simple but the simplest thing is difficult) This study wasn't just flawed, it was seriously misleading and implausible
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Wow, a whole class worth of misleading data viz in one chart!
static.klipy.com
Chris Pratt as Andy Dwyer's Shocked Reaction
Alt: Chris Pratt as Andy Dwyer's Shocked Reaction
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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Emily Riederer @emilyriederer.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The eternal question in data is "what is the denominator" and man does Gemini make silly choices. Asked how common an injury is, one might assume I meant *in people* but am given two rates: - % of injury among all hamstring injuries - % of injury among those who have half of the injury 🤷‍♀️
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
My husband and I too! He also reminded me that we actually started it in 2015 to figure out what the hype was about and had to stop after an upsettingly nonchalant dialogue about assault ..ick.
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
some of my finest stat-comm work 🤣https://bsky.app/profile/lucystats.bsky.social/post/3lo2japgpxk2d
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Oh yes! Looks just like those, probably where our prof got the idea 😅
static.klipy.com
Batman Responds to the Bat-Signal
ALT: Batman Responds to the Bat-Signal
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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Emily Riederer @emilyriederer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Had so much fun chatting with @lucystats.bsky.social and @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social about gnarly real world data wrangling — from elections to EHRs and beyond! Show link below! Meanwhile, I’m live-posting of my latest civic data eng sidequests here bsky.app/profile/emil...
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Get the details here: regressiontothemeangirls.com/posts/05-rie... And give it a listen here (or wherever you listen to podcasts!): open.spotify.com/episode/0QKf...
regressiontothemeangirls.com
Election Data Web Scraping – Regression to the Mean Girls
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
🎙️ Today on Regression to the Mean Girls @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social & I chat with the amazing @emilyriederer.bsky.social about a deep dive into election data! We chat data quality! Headless browser automation! Connections to EHR data! It’s great.
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
like this, I think? But (if I understand the gist!) yes, I keep seeing this in my classes where when I try to break things under most reasonable conditions I have trouble 😆, most recently in linear regression, prior to that, complete case analyses when only missing covariates 🙈
Type 1 error varying baseline prob
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
ooh I'm excited to look more closely, from a quick skim, we did these sims in grad school and its for baseline probs much less than 0.2 (or > 0.8) where you see the big differences (that classic batman shape 😂) dug out this ancient artifact: lucy.shinyapps.io/BinomialCove...
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Monkey island ♥️ Did you see Ron Gilbert is doing another Thimbleweed park?
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I usually can suspend disbelief enough for fun sci fi things but for some reason once infinity enters the chat I usually tap out 🤣 so I almost tapped out this season but glad I didn’t!
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I do think the next two eps will be about that (from reading between the lines comments from one of the writers on Reddit 😂) which will hopefully be good!
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
expecting more like actually infinite possibilities and I feel like this season has been stuck in finite ones? I don’t fully understand the replicating rules but if there are so many Jasons why aren’t there just as many families for him to reunite with, why was there just the one?
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This is so interesting! That isn’t how I saw it, to me it seemed more like an exploration of grief & acceptance that felt really grounding. But the many versions of one person is interesting I think I’ve had the opposite reaction this season where my (limited!!) multiverse understanding would be
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I think I did too (although I am a slow processor 😅)
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ooh creative!! Love it.
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
“Yeah, this is the emergency”
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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Hadley Wickham @hadley.nz · 21/09/2026
Possibly the best gift I ever received (from @winstonchang.bsky.social)
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Also featuring tidy data brass knuckles…in case of emergency 🤣
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Check out how he did it here: regressiontothemeangirls.com/posts/04-wes... And give it a listen here or wherever you listen to podcasts! open.spotify.com/episode/2qMP...
regressiontothemeangirls.com
The Art of Web Scraping Art – Regression to the Mean Girls
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
🎙️ Today on Regression to the Mean Girls @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social & I chat with @hadley.nz about an over-engineered solution to purchase some beautiful art!
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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Christine Zhang analyzed 415 episodes of Law & Order to answer the question: "How long does it actually take in Law & Order land for the criminal justice system to work, compared with how long it takes in reality?" @christinezhang.bsky.social regressiontothemeangirls.com/posts/03-law...
Analysis
Here’s a histogram showing the distribution of the time elapsed in each episode. The average Law & Order episode takes place over the course of about 68 days. How does that compare with reality?

Days elapsed over the course of a Law & Order episode
Based on an analysis of 415 episodes

[histogram diagram]
Average: 68 days

Real-life NYPD cases
take 800+ days to process

A timeline of cases in Law & Order
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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Christine Zhang @christinezhang.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I had an amazing time talking w/ @lucystats.bsky.social @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social about my longrunning Law & Order obsession on Regression to the Mean Girls!! Check out my analysis of the Law & Order timeline ⚖️👩🏻‍⚖️ regressiontothemeangirls.com/posts/03-law... creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...
creators.spotify.com
The Comfort of Competence and the Speed of Justice, According to Law & Order, with Christine Zhang by Regression to the Mean Girls
Christine Zhang (New York Times) joins ⁠⁠Sarah Lotspeich⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Lucy D'Agostino McGowan⁠⁠⁠ with a data-driven side quest into the TV show Law and Order. Check out the full analysis here: ⁠⁠regression...
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Ah that’s true!! A callback coming 😂
static.klipy.com
Freerealms FRS Marshmallow Character
ALT: Freerealms FRS Marshmallow Character
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
🎙️ Today on Regression to the Mean Girls we interview @christinezhang.bsky.social (@nytimes.com ) who takes us down a delightful rabbit hole of Law & Order theories on the comfort of competence & speed of justice ⚖️ regressiontothemeangirls.com/posts/03-law... creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...
creators.spotify.com
The Comfort of Competence and the Speed of Justice, According to Law & Order, with Christine Zhang by Regression to the Mean Girls
Christine Zhang (New York Times) joins ⁠⁠Sarah Lotspeich⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Lucy D'Agostino McGowan⁠⁠⁠ with a data-driven side quest into the TV show Law and Order. Check out the full analysis here: ⁠⁠regression...
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
On why I ♥️ Severance
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
🎙️ Regression to the Mean Girls Ep 2 is up! In which I share a deep dive on Severance data 😏 regressiontothemeangirls.com/posts/02-mys... open.spotify.com/episode/79hj...
open.spotify.com
The Work Is Mysterious and Important: Severance Data
Regression to the Mean Girls · Episode
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
😏
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Thank you 😂
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Mean Girls: I Know Right
Alt: Mean Girls: I Know Right
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
🎙️ New Podcast! @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social & I are launching Regression to the Mean Girls where we go way too deep into silly data side quests! In our first episode Sarah deep dives on time to first kiss in romance novels! open.spotify.com/episode/73wC... regressiontothemeangirls.com
open.spotify.com
Romance by the Numbers: First Sparks Across Tropes
Regression to the Mean Girls · Episode
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Thank you to everyone who came & for all the great discussion after! You can find: 🎞️ my slides here: www.lucymcgowan.com/talk/asa_joi... 📄 our article here: arxiv.org/abs/2512.07739
Lucy presenting a slide that says “My favorite things practical application and cute math”
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I wrote a bit on “doing your own research” to share with friends & family! Let me know what you think (and anything I should add!) theconversation.com/how-to-do-yo...
theconversation.com
How to do your own online health research like a scientist – a biostatistician’s step-by-step guide
Here’s how to sift through complicated studies without getting overwhelmed.
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Thank you!
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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
The Cochrane Collaboration @cochrane.org · 05/08/2026
In a time of conflicting messages, how can you find reliable health evidence? The Conversation (@theconversation.com) has published some good tips on doing your own research on your health 👇️ theconversation.com/how-to-do-yo...
theconversation.com
How to do your own online health research like a scientist – a biostatistician’s step-by-step guide
Here’s how to sift through complicated studies without getting overwhelmed.
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Thank you!
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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Tom Langen @calocitta.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
A short, good common-sense guide to doing your own research about health topics.
theconversation.com
How to do your own online health research like a scientist – a biostatistician’s step-by-step guide
Here’s how to sift through complicated studies without getting overwhelmed.
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
It gets better!! ♥️
static.klipy.com
Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen's Salute
ALT: Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen's Salute
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I’ll be talking about Symmetric Vaccine Efficacy (a collab with @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social & Michael Hudgens) this morning! #JSM2026 📍 253 C ⏰ 9:50a 🎞️ docs.google.com/presentation...
docs.google.com
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Symmetric Vaccine Efficacy Lucy D’Agostino McGowan Department of Statistical Sciences Wake Forest University Interpretable Estimation and Inference for Vaccine Trials
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Reposted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Michael Friendly @datavisfriendly.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
BREAKING The R Core Team just awarded the prestigious Rousseuw Prize in statistics, stats equivalent of Nobel Prize 🏆 🏆🏆🏆 #rstats A team effort over many years suitably recognized
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