I would estimate that 90% of software developers I have spoken to lack basic statistical understanding. Basic concepts like kurtosis, skewness, moments, the core Greeks all seem to be alien concepts to most.
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
#132I would estimate that 90% of software developers I have spoken to lack basic statistical understanding. Basic concepts like kurtosis, skewness, moments, the core Greeks all seem to be alien concepts to most.
> Basic concepts like kurtosis, skewness
You can probably lead a decent life without understanding kurtosis and skewness. You probably can’t if you don’t understand when a normal distribution applies.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#133>> 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 only believe in statistics that I doctored myself”
― Winston Churchill
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#134>> 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…
> 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…
> the quote popularized by Mark Twain "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"
I’m increasingly convinced this is a thought-terminating cliche. Understanding the difference between a median, mean and mode is fundamentally empowering. Enough people, however, will stop themselves from trying to understand that by quoting such a joke.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#135What's going on in Pennsylvania? Is it so highly educated a place that they don't understand that 50% of U.S. adults can't read at a 6th grade level, let alone understand "confidence intervals"?
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#136Basic statistics and basic economics/finance are two subjects that are completely underdeveloped within the general population. Coincidentally those two effectively rule our entire lives. As an aside, STAT 200 looks like a solid stats course.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#137> 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…
10% may be a magnitude too high at least if we expect the explanation to be correct. For example in a sample of statisticians/epidemiologists only 12.5% got two basic features of p-values correct [1]. And there are a lot of studies showing similar levels of misunderstanding among people using p-values professionally.
I use p-values daily. I can and do compute them using various methods, including by hand. But I'd still not be confident in my two sentence explanation. P-values are very unintuitive and very easy to get subtly wrong.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#138Earlier 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 :)
Bill Gates walked into a bar. Everyone was, on average, a multi millionaire.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Half of all Americans have lower than average understanding of statistics (or at least, lower understanding than the average American)
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.
Re: More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding
#140Earlier 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…
> the quote popularized by Mark Twain "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" I’m increasingly convinced this is a thought-terminating cliche. Understanding the difference between a median, mean and mode is fundamentally empowering. Enough people, however, will stop themselves from trying to understand that by quoting such a joke.
Its more a foreshadowing of Simpson's paradox and a cluster of similarly counterintuitive effects. Statistical evidence that is technically of high quality can cause decision makers to believe the exact opposite of what is true.