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Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

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Re: Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

#61

Post by ben_w »

organsnyder wrote: post #29
lordnacho wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to be on the internet for long to see: - "Polls are useless, they only sampled a few thousand people" - "Why do we need the crime figures adjusted for the age/income/etc groups? Just gimme the raw truth!" Have to say, I think stats are the least well taught area in the math curriculum. Most people by far have no clue what Simpson's or Berkson's paradoxes are. Most people do not have the critical sense…

You don't have to be on the Internet long to see flat-earthers or any number of asinine ways of thinking. You can't stretch discrete observations from a supremely massive sample size into "most people".

Gee, if only there was some kind of rigorous and well understood process for determining how to transform discrete observations according to how representative they are, such that we could build a model for a larger population.

Something like that would be very useful for political decision, so perhaps we could name it after the latin word for "of the state"…

;P

Re: Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

#62

Post by tomlue »

michaelmarkell wrote: post #54
tomlue wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're coming from a good place, but the 'most people I meet don't understand this' line about statistics is quite arrogant. Most people you meet are fully capable of understanding statistics; you should do a better job of explaining it when it comes up, or maybe you are the one who misunderstands. After all, most statisticians thought Marilyn vos Savant was wrong about the goats too...

The Monty hall problem is a great example of something I’ve been educated into believing, rationalizing, whatever you want to call it…but I would still never claim I “understand it.” I think that’s maybe the source of disagreement here, there are many truly unintuitive outcomes of statistics that are not “understood” by most people in the most respectful sense of the word, even if we’ve been educated into knowing the…

you should totally spend some time thinking and experimenting with the monty hall problem then. It might not be as tricky as you think.

Re: Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

#63

Post by chuankl »

shever73 wrote: post #60
kqr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely arrogant. But after much experience trying to explain these things to people, I'm more and more convinced it's not just "if you just put it the right way they will understand". Sure, they will nod politely and pretend to understand, and may even do a passable job of reciting it, but once its cast in a slightly different light they are just as confused. Much as with reading and writing, I think it take…

What resources would you recommend for someone who wants to improve their statistical literacy? You mention reading the right books, I'd appreciate it if you could give a short list, if you have time.

I am not the person you asked, but I have been on a similar path to improve my statistical literacy. For context, I am fairly good at math generally (used to be a math major in college decades ago; didn't do particularly well though I did graduate) but always managed to get myself extremely confused when it comes to statistics.

In terms of books: there are a few good ones aimed for the general public, such as The Signal and The Noise. How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business is a good book of applying statistical thinking in a practical setting, though it wouldn't help you wrap your brain around things like the Monty Hall problem.

The one book that really made things click for me was this:

Probability Theory: The Logic of Science by E. T. Jaynes

This book is a bit more math-heavy, but I think anyone with a working background in a science or engineering field (including software engineering) should be able to get the important fundamental idea out of the book.

You don't need to completely comprehend all the details in math (I surely didn't); it is enough to have a high-level understanding of how the formulas are structured at the high level. But you do need enough math (for example, an intuitive understanding of logarithm) for the book to be useful.

Re: Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

#64

Post by wisty »

tomlue wrote: post #8
kqr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This goes beyond project estimations. The Metaculus tournaments have questions like > Will YouTube be banned in Russia before October 1? These are the kinds of questions most people I meet would claim are impossible to forecast accurately on because of their supposed uniqueness, yet the Metaculus community does it again and again. I believe the problem is a lack of statistical literacy. Back in the 1500s shipping ins…

I know you're coming from a good place, but the 'most people I meet don't understand this' line about statistics is quite arrogant. Most people you meet are fully capable of understanding statistics; you should do a better job of explaining it when it comes up, or maybe you are the one who misunderstands. After all, most statisticians thought Marilyn vos Savant was wrong about the goats too...

The vast majority of people are not that great at statistics. Even something as banal as "correlation is not causation, and can often be explained by a common cause" will blow a fair few minds (e.g. telling most people that old chestnut about how the murder rate is correlated with ice cream sales).

Re: Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

#65

Post by thaumasiotes »

ben_w wrote: post #61
organsnyder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to be on the Internet long to see flat-earthers or any number of asinine ways of thinking. You can't stretch discrete observations from a supremely massive sample size into "most people".

Gee, if only there was some kind of rigorous and well understood process for determining how to transform discrete observations according to how representative they are, such that we could build a model for a larger population. Something like that would be very useful for political decision, so perhaps we could name it after the latin word for "of the state"… ;P

> perhaps we could name it after the latin word for "of the state"…

Civitatis?

Re: Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

#66

Post by kqr »

shever73 wrote: post #60
kqr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely arrogant. But after much experience trying to explain these things to people, I'm more and more convinced it's not just "if you just put it the right way they will understand". Sure, they will nod politely and pretend to understand, and may even do a passable job of reciting it, but once its cast in a slightly different light they are just as confused. Much as with reading and writing, I think it take…

What resources would you recommend for someone who wants to improve their statistical literacy? You mention reading the right books, I'd appreciate it if you could give a short list, if you have time.

I second both The Signal and the Noise as well as How to Measure Anything. I also mentioned upthread Willful Ignorance.

I think perhaps the best bang for your buck could be Wheeler's Understanding Variation -- but that is based mainly on vague memory and skimming the table of contents. I plan on writing a proper review of that book in the coming year to make certain it is what I remember it to be.

I think the earlier works by Taleb also touch on this (Fooled by Randomness seems to have it in the title).

But then I strongly recommend branching out to places where these fundamentals are used, to cement them:

- Anything popular by Deming (e.g. The New Economics)

- Anything less popular by Deming (e.g. Some Theory of Sampling)

- Moneyball

- Theory of Probability (de Finetti)

- Causality (Pearl)

- Applied Survival Analysis

- Analysis of Extremal Events

- Regression Modeling with Actuarial and Financial Applications

The more theoretical and applied books are less casual reads, obviously. They also happen to be the directions in which I have gone -- you may have more luck picking your own direction for where to apply and practice your intuition.

Edit: Oh and while I don't have a specific book recommendation because none of the ones I read I have good opinions on, something on combinatorics helps with getting a grasp on the general smell of entropy and simpler problems like Monty Hall.

Re: Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

#67

Post by shever73 »

kqr wrote: post #66
shever73 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What resources would you recommend for someone who wants to improve their statistical literacy? You mention reading the right books, I'd appreciate it if you could give a short list, if you have time.

I second both The Signal and the Noise as well as How to Measure Anything . I also mentioned upthread Willful Ignorance . I think perhaps the best bang for your buck could be Wheeler's Understanding Variation -- but that is based mainly on vague memory and skimming the table of contents. I plan on writing a proper review of that book in the coming year to make certain it is what I remember it to be. I think the earli…

These responses are great and helpful. Thank you to you both.

Re: Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

#68

Post by ben_w »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #65
ben_w wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gee, if only there was some kind of rigorous and well understood process for determining how to transform discrete observations according to how representative they are, such that we could build a model for a larger population. Something like that would be very useful for political decision, so perhaps we could name it after the latin word for "of the state"… ;P

> perhaps we could name it after the latin word for "of the state"… Civitatis?

Alterum verbum est https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/statistics#Etymology_1

Re: Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

#69

Post by thaumasiotes »

ben_w wrote: post #68
thaumasiotes wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> perhaps we could name it after the latin word for "of the state"… Civitatis?

Alterum verbum est https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/statistics#Etymology_1

That's not Latin.

> from New Latin statisticum

Also, etymonline makes a pretty convincing case that statisticum refers to the behavior of administrators, not to the concept of the administration, with the -ist- specifically indicating a person.

Re: Uniqueness Bias: Why it matters, how to curb it

#70

Post by [deleted] »

pessimizer wrote: post #34
tomlue wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're coming from a good place, but the 'most people I meet don't understand this' line about statistics is quite arrogant. Most people you meet are fully capable of understanding statistics; you should do a better job of explaining it when it comes up, or maybe you are the one who misunderstands. After all, most statisticians thought Marilyn vos Savant was wrong about the goats too...

This is not at all true, and I think it's an example of what statisticians have to fight against in order to explain anything. Most people have an almost religious belief that inferences drawn from statistics should be intuitive , when they are often often extremely counterintuitive. > After all, most statisticians thought Marilyn vos Savant was wrong about the goats too... This is the opposite of the argument that y…

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