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More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
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Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Assuming you don't just make them up, they're trivial to manipulate to generate the headline you want. well encapsulated in the quote popularized by Mark Twain "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statist... One of my favourite jokes: 93 % of statistics are made up on the spot, and 61 % of people believe them. Bonus points for changing the figures every ti…
Well, if we're telling stats jokes... A statistician is a man who with his head in the freezer and his feet in the oven can say "On the whole I feel perfectly normal." Recommended reading: 'How to lie with statistics' - Huff, 1954 :)
I’d recommend reading “How to make the world count” instead of a work of a morally bankrupt guy who used the very same tricks he criticized to discredit the cancer studies of tobacco usage.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#93>> 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…
>> found that 62% of respondents reported no or limited statistical knowledge Combined with Dunning-Kruger, this means that the real number of people completely clueless about statistics is closer to 38%.
Funny that you mentioned an effect that may just have been a statistical artifact after all [0, 1]
(Also, I assume you are joking in how you apply the effect here even assuming it is real)
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8992690/
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#9438% of Americans say they have some familiarity with statistics. On a somewhat related note, 8% of Americans say they can beat a gorilla in a fist-fight.
I can beat a gorilla in a fist fight because it's gonna rip my body in half, but lose by disqualification due to rules violations. A posthumous win is still a win.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#95Been saying it for years. Basic probability theory should be taught in schools, it's a strong tool for understanding the world around you.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#96>> 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".
XCOM should be added to the curriculum.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#97Maybe their survey should have asked one question: What is the difference between average and median?
More than half would not be able to answer this, and not only in US.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I did however learn enough to know that statistics can tell you absolutely anything you want them to say. When told to a statistically illiterate person who isn't aware of Simpson's paradox and so on?
> When told to a statistically illiterate person? Which is a rounding error from 100% according to the GP.
That's obvious. I just hope the OP doesn't end up with the same expression as Anakin in the Anakin-and-Padme meme after this question.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
yeah, i've studied a lot of math and a lot of cs, and stats is tough. part of the problem is the terminology, and just giving a ton of complex machinery without telling you what it's actually doing. i've never learned that way, and it is very easy to feel like you're doing some sort of dark magic. also, probability theory vs statistics is an important distinction: prob theory is a nice clean mathematical subject, whi…
Statistical reasoning isn't really motivated when it's taught, at least in the US. My schooling (I did jump around a bunch) assumed the student to have picked it up through vague balls-and-bins style problems taught in various units in various grade levels. By the time I took my statistics class in undergrad math, coming from a similar background to you, they just sort of assumed you had a head for combinatorics and…
Are the materials for the class on complex system failure analysis you had available online? Thank you.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#100>> 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…
>mean versus medians
This is a tests of knowledge of definitions than actual statistical knowledge.