My solution to save the world? Make Statistics compulsory

[BacktoCricaddict]

Every human being who gets an education must become trained in statistical analysis - just simple stuff like the importance of control groups, sample sizes, reproducibility of observations and experimental design to test hypotheses.  Failure to do so is what we have today - anecdotal evidence passing for reality, things taken out-of-context with ease, gullible public and the like.  

 

https://unherd.com/2021/03/how-dangerous-is-the-astrazeneca-jab/?=frlh

 

11 steps to make the world a better place.  

 

 

1) Put numbers into context

Ask yourself: is that a big number? If Britain dumps 6 million tons of sewage in the North Sea each year, that sounds pretty bad. But is it a lot? What’s the denominator? What numbers do you need to understand whether that is more or less than you’d expect? In this case, for instance, it’s probably relevant that the North Sea contains 54 thousand billion tons of water.

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2) Give absolute risk, not just relative

If you tell me that eating burnt toast will raise my risk of a hernia by 50%, that sounds worrying. But unless you tell me how common hernias are, it’s meaningless. Let readers know the absolute risk. The best way to do this is to use the expected number of people it will affect. For instance: “Two people in every 10,000 will suffer a hernia in their lifetime. If they eat burnt toast regularly, that rises to three people in every 10,000.”

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3) Check whether the study you’re reporting on is a fair representation of the literature

Not all scientific papers are born equal. When CERN found the Higgs boson, or LIGO detected gravitational waves, those findings were worth reporting on in their own right. But if you’re reporting on a new study that finds that red wine is good for you, it should be presented in the context that there are lots of other studies, and that any individual study can only be part of the overall picture.

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4) Give the sample size of the study – and be wary of small samples

A drug trial which has 10,000 subjects should be robust against statistical noise or random errors. A psychological study looking at 15 undergraduates and asking whether washing their hands makes them feel less guilty is much less so. It’s not that small studies are always bad, but they are more likely to find spurious results, so be wary of reporting on them.

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5) Be aware of problems that science is struggling with, like p-hacking and publication bias

Journalists can’t be expected to be an expert in every field, and it’s hard to blame them for missing problems in science that scientists themselves often miss. But be aware of the various ways that scientists can chop up data to make it look as though there’s something there when there isn’t — or to quietly hide results that don’t support their hypothesis. Also, if a result is surprising, that might be because it’s not true. Sometimes science is surprising, but most of the time, not very.

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6) Don’t report forecasts as single numbers. Give the confidence interval and explain it

A lot of the time, the media will report on forecasts and models of the future. For instance, each year the Office for Budget Responsibility will make an economic forecast for how much the economy will grow. Or in early 2020, statistical modellers made forecasts for how many people the Covid-19 pandemic would kill.

If they said “Without a lockdown, Covid-19 will kill 250,000 people in Britain,” they didn’t mean that it would kill exactly 250,000. Instead, that was a best guess, in the middle of a wide range of uncertainty: they might say, for instance, that they were 95% sure that the true figure would fall between 100,000 and 400,000. That is the “confidence interval”.

Often, though, when the media reports on forecasts and models, they just give the central, best-guess estimate, which makes them sound more precise than they are. When reporting on forecasts and models, make sure you give the confidence interval, not just the central estimate.

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7) Be careful about saying or implying that something causes something else

Lots of studies find correlations between one thing and another — between drinking fizzy drinks and violence, for instance, or between vaping and smoking weed. But the fact that two things are correlated doesn’t mean that one causes the other; there could be something else going on. If the study isn’t a randomised experiment, then it’s much more difficult to show causality. Be wary of saying “video games cause violence” or “YouTube causes extremism” if the study can’t show it.

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8) Be wary of cherry-picking and random variation

If you notice that something has gone up by 50% between 2010 and 2018, have a quick look — if you’d started your graph from 2008 or 2006 instead, would the increase still have looked as dramatic? Sometimes numbers jump around a bit, and by picking a point where it happened to be low, you can make random variation look like a shocking story. That’s especially true of relatively rare events, like murder or suicide.

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9) Beware of rankings

Has Britain dropped from the world’s fifth-largest economy to the seventh? Is a university ranked the 48th best in the world? What does that mean? Depending on the underlying numbers, it could be a big deal or it could be irrelevant. For example, suppose that Denmark leads the world with 1,000 public defibrillators per million people, and the UK is 17th with 968. That isn’t a huge difference, especially if you compare it with countries that have no public defibrillators. Does being 17th in this case mean that the UK health authorities have a callous disregard for public emergency first-aid installations? Probably not. When giving rankings, always explain the numbers underpinning them and how they’re arrived at.

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10) Always give your sources

This is key. Link to, or include in your footnotes, the place you got your numbers from. The original place: the scientific study (the journal page, or the doi.org page), the Office for National Statistics bulletin, the YouGov poll. If you don’t, you make it much harder for people to check the numbers for themselves.

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11) If you get it wrong, admit it

Crucially – if you make a mistake and someone points it out, don’t worry. It happens all the time. Just say thank you, correct it, and move on.

  

 

 

[Clarke]

A somewhat related topic of probability is already covered in school. You reckon it makes a difference and made people realise regular smoking increases risk of cancer and heart disease by what percent ? Nope, it's still black & white, they knew/heard of someone who smokes and was healthy at 80 so it's all good. 

 

It (probability) could be covered in a more practical context beyond the balls & dice, but not as many people absorb math as we nerds do. There's also the short term benefit over long term consequences. Thats the world we live in. 

[BacktoCricaddict]

Just now, Clarke said:

A somewhat related topic of probability is already covered in school. You reckon it makes a difference and made people realise regular smoking increases risk of cancer and heart disease by what percent ? Nope, it's still black & white, they knew/heard of someone who smokes and was healthy at 80 so it's all good. 

 

It (probability) could be covered in a more practical context beyond the balls & dice, but not as many people absorb math as we nerds do. There's also the short term benefit over long term consequences. Thats the world we live in. 

You're right - the way it is presented is paramount.  I hated that crap when I was in school but once I started learning it for my career, it became tangible and relevant, and thus interesting.  I am not even that good at maths, but simple, practical statistics is not abstract and is very common-sense based.  Learning it should become like learning how to construct sentences.  

[G_B_]

I think most of the news industry would go bust if this was implemented. It should though...

 

 

 

 

 

[Khota]

Op has a interesting viewpoint but stats should only be for people who enjoy it.

[randomGuy]

Out of my interest for the subject, I had actually covered much of the syllabus of MA statistics from the internet. In addition, had covered the maths behind data science, neural networks etc....it is very cool. I agree, kids should be given certain exposure to this subject.

[Khota]

Since OP is good at stat let  me ask a simple question:

 

I stated on cricket forum that all cricket averages runs, wkts etc. for comparison are meaningless to some extent.

 

The waycricket averages are presented are all incorrect. I was ridiculed for that. Do you think I am right or wrong?

[G_B_]

On 3/18/2021 at 2:43 AM, Khota said:

Since OP is good at stat let  me ask a simple question:

 

I stated on cricket forum that all cricket averages runs, wkts etc. for comparison are meaningless to some extent.

 

The waycricket averages are presented are all incorrect. I was ridiculed for that. Do you think I am right or wrong?

 

These cricketing stats we present on this forum are just descriptive stats. Exploratory data analysis. Nothing more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chewy]

Stats have limitation vs human fear especially when it comes to human safety where deterministic case is more important. 

 

For example nuclear power is statistically very safe and kills less people compared to other forms of energy production but the worst case scenario is doomsday and death by radiation and this perception makes many people totally against nuclear power.

 

When the end result is gruesome death, people's rational goes out of the window.

 

 

[Mariyam]

Click bait title.

 

How would perfect knowledge of Stats save the world?

 

A good decision is a mix of crisp data analysis and intuition. Won't we phase out 'gut feel' by viewing at everything only from a *stat only* POV?

[ravishingravi]

I would recommend the book "Factfulness- Ten reasons why we are wrong about the world and why things are better than you think" by Hans Rosling 

[Real McCoy]

People get screwed over by "save the world" types. Comic book superheroes were invented by a minority with a victim complex and the heroes are a reflection of themselves in their own imagination trying to take revenge for their victimhood and "save the world" for other "victims". You can't save the world when its already doing fine. So they introduce friction where there is none and come in to save the day like a superhero. This has been happening for ages. I'm not saying the OP is one of them but those who are influenced by movies or comics develop this mindset. I don't know the medical term but probably bipolar and schizophrenia might describe those who invented these superheroes.

Common sense and critical thinking should be encouraged over statistical mumbo jumbo. I brushed through the post and I saw "quarter govind 19". Immediately I came to the judgement that its nonsense. Next. Once a great philosopher said "stats are like miniskirts. they show a lot of things but cover the most important things" Find out who this philosopher is.

[Mariyam]

^ Was that Siddhu?

[Real McCoy]

Yes

[BacktoCricaddict]

6 hours ago, Mariyam said:

Click bait title.

 

How would perfect knowledge of Stats save the world?

 

A good decision is a mix of crisp data analysis and intuition. Won't we phase out 'gut feel' by viewing at everything only from a *stat only* POV?

We are not talking complex statistical principles; rather, the OP advocates for cementing at an impressionable age the importance of de-valuing anecdotal evidence, while giving more value to data obtained from large sample sizes, reproducible data and correlation-is-not-causation principles.  Maybe, then, as we grow up, our intuitions will be based on more solid foundations than just "things our elders told us" or tribal affiliations.  It is even more critical in this day and age because anyone with a phone and an internet connection can perpetuate any anecdotal fairytale as fact.

 

Did you get a chance to read all the 11 principles that I copy-pasted from a source?  They were written by someone with much better writing skills than mine!  Anything there you disagree with?

 

As for "saving the world," yeah, that was click-bait.  And it worked, no :-)?  Seriously, though, many people lack the ability to

(a) think about numbers (simple quantitative analysis) and (b) analyze risk and (c) correct themselves when their intuition based on anecdotes is wrong.

Edited March 23, 2021 by BacktoCricaddict

[BacktoCricaddict]

7 hours ago, ravishingravi said:

I would recommend the book "Factfulness- Ten reasons why we are wrong about the world and why things are better than you think" by Hans Rosling 

Great book.  Hans Rosling is was (he died ~ 3 yrs ago)  a true visionary.  I have posted this here a dozen times, but will do so again.  Well worth it:

 

 

Edited March 23, 2021 by BacktoCricaddict

[Mariyam]

20 minutes ago, BacktoCricaddict said:

We are not talking complex statistical principles; rather, the OP advocates for cementing at an impressionable age the importance of de-valuing anecdotal evidence, while giving more value to data obtained from large sample sizes, reproducible data and correlation-is-not-causation principles.  Maybe, then, as we grow up, our intuitions will be based on more solid foundations than just "things our elders told us" or tribal affiliations.  It is even more critical in this day and age because anyone with a phone and an internet connection can perpetuate any anecdotal fairytale as fact.

 

Did you get a chance to read all the 11 principles that I copy-pasted from a source?  They were written by someone with much better writing skills than mine!  Anything there you disagree with?

 

As for "saving the world," yeah, that was click-bait.  And it worked, no :-)?  Seriously, though, many people lack the ability to

(a) think about numbers (simple quantitative analysis) and (b) analyze risk and (c) correct themselves when their intuition based on anecdotes is wrong.

I did read the write up!

 

Deciding intervals, hypothesis testing, agreeing on what is a large sample etc is *complex statistical process* for me. 

 

Also, instinct is experience driven. Not just based on hear say/what the elders said. But this is from a decision making POV. What you and the author are primarily talking about is forming an opinion.

[coffee_rules]

News and opinion is all about building a narrative. India is called rape capital of the world , lynchistan, dalit-opressor, etc without looking at ant stats, but can't accept some like Love-jihad, conversions, etc citing stat holes. 

[BacktoCricaddict]

49 minutes ago, Mariyam said:

I did read the write up!

 

Deciding intervals, hypothesis testing, agreeing on what is a large sample etc is *complex statistical process* for me. 

 

Also, instinct is experience driven. Not just based on hear say/what the elders said. But this is from a decision making POV. What you and the author are primarily talking about is forming an opinion.

Of course, there is a place for all of this.  But, experience-based intuition already exists.  We all do it.  And also we are all born with certain instincts (as opposed to intuition).  What is lacking is analytical reasoning, for which we are not hardwired, and must learn intentionally so we can improve opinion-forming and decision-making.      

[BacktoCricaddict]

Just now, coffee_rules said:

News and opinion is all about building a narrative. India is called rape capital of the world , lynchistan, dalit-opressor, etc without looking at ant stats, but can't accept some like Love-jihad, conversions, etc citing stat holes. 

Are all of these stats gathered using proper statistical principles and discussed using proper context?  The whole premise of the OP was to present principles that real journos will adhere to while writing.