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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

#171

Post by Yizahi »

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…

A side note - I blame that on our education. In my anecdotal n=1 case, the statistics were never taught in school (and I was in math class all the way and the school was higher tier locally, a "lyceum"). And in the local Polytechnic the only course which taught the subject was a Probability Theory and Math Statistics. It was one of those "intimidating" courses on my faculty, the ones which older students scare freshmen with. And it was indeed as crazy as they said, I remember nothing from it outside of the sheer horror of rote remembering hundreds of pages of, well, something. I scrapped by with a lowest passing mark and promptly cleared my brain cache of that.

Nowadays I often stumble upon this or that statistical topic, watch an educational video, read a wiki explanation and it makes sense. Plus I've picked up unstructured and chaotically a lot of terms just by reading IT articles and forums.

tl;dr - my point is, our education is severely lacking a simple, short and concise statistics course on ELI5 level, for middle schoolers. And it is a huge gap in skills people actually do need in common life, outside of STEM. And the skills I'm talking about aren't even hard, a core set of basic concepts, without any math, can likely fit in a tiny brochure written in simple literary English with a few illustrations. Or a set of YT videos along the same lines.

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

#172

Post by jounker »

pmontra wrote: post #56
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…

> mean versus medians, confidence levels or margins of error It's basic when you are attending an undergraduate course but most people can understand mean (as a dictionary might generically define it) and have a general feeling for margin of error (again, not in the mathematical way.) Statistics has been the most difficult course in my CS course. For some reason when I start counting events to get a probability I fin…

In college, studying mathematics, probability was the course in did best in. The funny part is that I have a form of ilnumeria. Effectively I can’t count. As a result I have no desire to try to actually count things, and the easiest way for me to cope is by understanding the theory behind counting.

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

#173

Post by ghm2199 »

ghm2199 wrote: post #168

One of the simplest ways to measure risk in stocks, bonds, crypto, mfs etc for ordinary people is Maximum Drawdown. Once you understand how it works, it takes the stress out of making and managing your own portfolio P — espexially your non retirement account. The question you have to ask your self is: "Given some portfolio with returns of X%, am I ok with this asset being down by Z% over T years — i.e the _computed/i…

I think the posted article is also the description of America's labor market. Many people don't use it on a day today basis and most people cannot engage their system 2 to assess risks over a few weeks out, let alone 5-10 years.

But I found This is a real practical everyday example of why statistical uncertainty is important to know about. It teaches you how to compare — risk adjust — two vastly different investments e.g. BTC vs S&P or indexing vs value strategies. Then you sleep at night.

It is also not intuitive and many people are very anxious and FOMO driven when it comes to money. So you need to internalize the idea for it to sink.

The drawdowns are a statistical measure and you could be unlucky to catch a big depression style thing once in 30 years. And T is typically longer than 5 years, typically 10 or more.

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

#174

Post by lgessler »

t-3 wrote: post #166
Modified3019 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XCOM should be added to the curriculum.

XCOM probabilities are lies, just like Fire Emblem. Pretty much 0% of games that show you a "percent-to-hit" chance ever give an accurate number.

true for XCOM in all difficulties except the hardest iirc

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

#175

Post by jounker »

somenameforme wrote: post #103
bruce511 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thesis is that no-one understands. So there's no political orientation. Your suggestion suggests that a little bit of technical education would change political allegiance. Alas that is incorrect. Politics is about worldview (me and mine versus you and yours) and a world view cannot be changed by something as mundane as education. Each person has both a self-centered side, and a community-centered side. For some i…

A bit of a tangent, but I don't think it's really fair to say it's about self vs community. I think the main reason that people start to lean in a different direction as they age is because you start to see cracks in the ideals you held when younger. The internet is a good example. Many of us lived through the birth of the mainstreaming of the internet. And our perspectives of what the future held at that moment was…

I‘ve seen lots of people go the other way, moving towards a more self centered view of the world as they age.

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

#177

Post by defrost »

sethammons wrote: post #139
defrost wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Why not 5% of Americans having the same average level of understanding and only 47.5% having a lower than average understanding? What assumptions are you making, and why should they be true?

It is the same as wealth, or any dataset that has large data outliers on one side. Average and mean are the same: normal distribution. Average higher than mean: skewed by big outliers. Professional statistician affects the distribution of statistics knowledge like billionaires affect wealth distribution.

Congrats for having a shot, sadly that doesn't answer the questions posed in the slightest.

Again, why does the GP assume that a full half are distinctly lower than "average understanding" ? Why the assumption that multiple numbers cannot share an average understanding?

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

#178

Post by ivandenysov »

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…

> statistics can tell you absolutely anything you want them to say

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Collins

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

#179

Post by meetingthrower »

mr_mitm wrote: post #123
331c8c71 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think almost everyone threw a dice quite a few times while playing board games.

And yet they struggle with the abstract concept. They'll wonder why the candidate with a projected 20% chance of winning won. They won't know what to do with the information of a 70% chance of rain tomorrow. "Either it will rain or it won't, which is it!" Perhaps it's the frequentist approach that comes more natural than the Bayesian approach, who knows. This isn't my original thought, by the way. Someone wrote more…

Nobody understands Bayesian approach. Look at Covid -- people FREAKED out when we updated guidance based on learning new information.

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

#180

Post by po1nt »

somenameforme wrote: post #103
bruce511 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thesis is that no-one understands. So there's no political orientation. Your suggestion suggests that a little bit of technical education would change political allegiance. Alas that is incorrect. Politics is about worldview (me and mine versus you and yours) and a world view cannot be changed by something as mundane as education. Each person has both a self-centered side, and a community-centered side. For some i…

A bit of a tangent, but I don't think it's really fair to say it's about self vs community. I think the main reason that people start to lean in a different direction as they age is because you start to see cracks in the ideals you held when younger. The internet is a good example. Many of us lived through the birth of the mainstreaming of the internet. And our perspectives of what the future held at that moment was…

The problem is that convincing yourself that you are smarter than your younger self with opposite views, means that you are right about the politics now, is just a fallacy.
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