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More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding

psu.edu

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Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding

#61

Post by piskov »

jdw64 wrote: post #27

What does it really mean to properly understand p-value? What I remember is that if the p-value is less than 0.05, the research result is considered statistically significant. That's about as far as my memory goes. I know that's actually a misunderstanding, but that's how most people understand it. I'm not sure how much I need to know to say I truly understand it.

It is mumbo jumbo (also people hearing “significant” treat this as “effect/change is large and important” which is in no relation to the actual amount of change).

Low p-value basically means how surprising your data would be if there were actually no effect (ie less than 5% of the time you’ll get this due to randomness if there is no change — which is rather impossible)

Sample size matters heavily. With more observations, estimates become more precise, so increasingly small differences can become statistically significant. With a large sample, you can therefore get a tiny, practically meaningless effect with a very small p-value.

Eg effect of $1 can be statistically significant (not random) which does not matter in practical terms if average is like $10000.

So the key point here is not only to look at the p-value but also at an actual change. If a drug gives you only 0.01% more hair, it doesn’t matter to you that it is guaranteed.

Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding

#62

Post by dr_dshiv »

“Fortunately, concepts in statistics are grounded in intuition and rationality.“

Yeaaah… let’s talk about that.

Seems like a fair bit of stats were designed to intimidate —so as to get people to stop asking questions. Or at least that is the effect!

Stats designed for intuition are few. See Kill Math for how it might be done: https://worrydream.com/KillMath/

Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding

#63

Post by mr_mitm »

bruce511 wrote: post #16

>> found that 62% of respondents reported no or limited statistical knowledge The other 38% didn't understand the question...(my extrapolation) I did a couple semesters of statistics at uni. And I can confidently say that the number of people who can answer 3 simple questions on statistics (like say mean versus medians, confidence levels or margins of error) is, well, a rounding error from 0. Indeed, statistically, n…

I wish people had an intuitive understanding of probabilities. It seems the average person can only think in terms of "basically never happens", "fifty fifty" and "sure thing".

Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding

#64

Post by maccard »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #40
maccard wrote: post #31

> How much do you understand about statistics and p-values? I suspect that it’s far far less than 38% of people who actually understand statistics to this level. I suspect if someone on HN went around and asked their co workers to explain what a P value is in 2 sentences, it would be less than 10% of a (presumably) highly educated workforce. I suspect about 40% of adults are unable to tell the difference between mean…

I mean, the Monty Hall problem is a literal gotcha that trips up literal professors, that's a horrendous example to use as the baseline for "basic understanding of statistics". Other than that choice of example, I do agree in that I doubt anywhere near 40% of adults have basic statistical literacy. I've played in card game tournaments semi-professionally and just gambler's fallacy + results-oriented thinking alone ma…

Yeah I maybe should have ignored the Monty hall problem - although I’d guess if you’ve studied enough stats to know what a P value is, and how to measure it, you’ve come up against the Monty hall problem!

Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding

#66

Post by quijoteuniv »

bruce511 wrote: post #16

>> found that 62% of respondents reported no or limited statistical knowledge The other 38% didn't understand the question...(my extrapolation) I did a couple semesters of statistics at uni. And I can confidently say that the number of people who can answer 3 simple questions on statistics (like say mean versus medians, confidence levels or margins of error) is, well, a rounding error from 0. Indeed, statistically, n…

It would be interesting to probe the political orientation of the people who understand and those who don’t and see if there is some correlation there.

Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding

#68

Post by sleepysloppy7 »

idoubtit wrote: post #47

The fact that 62% of Americans have little or no understanding of statistics may be related to those 40% of Americans that believe in Creationism, i.e. human (and fossils) were created by God a few thousands of years ago, and not of randomness and evolution over millions of years. I think no other industrial country has that disbelief in science. https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creati... This pr…

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Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding

#70

Post by frontfor »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #62

“Fortunately, concepts in statistics are grounded in intuition and rationality.“ Yeaaah… let’s talk about that. Seems like a fair bit of stats were designed to intimidate —so as to get people to stop asking questions. Or at least that is the effect! Stats designed for intuition are few. See Kill Math for how it might be done: https://worrydream.com/KillMath/

The article reads like work of a crackpot. There’s a reason why maths is done the way it is, and intimidating people is definitely not the motivation.
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