Lies, damn lies, misrepresentation, misinterpretation and STATISTICS

[StealthPolarBear]

A thread for anyone who is infuriated by and/or enjoys reading about this type of stuff. I love it, but annoyingly at the moment I can't think of any examples, other than dull work-related ones. For example, if you're looking at something as a proportion of the whole, then you can't consider one thing in isolation. For example, as Trills mentioned on another thread, let's assume heart disease is the biggest killer of adults (which I believe it is). Let's assume 10% of deaths to adults in 1950 were of heart disease, compared to 42% now. Shocking rise? Probably not.

Plus I will attempt to explain the Monty Hall (think that's the name) problem to anyone who is interested and who doesn't already know it.

We try to suggest she wins the car then sells it for goats but she isn't happy with that suggestion.

We also once tried to explain the infinite hotel problem where an infinite number of guests arrive wanting rooms so you ask everyone to move to the room that is double the number of their current room eg 1->2, 2->4, 3->6 etc. Oh the regret in starting that conversation.

Well thsn there is no reasoning with her

aaahhhh!

I am home!

Our survey suggests that Science and Nature is 78% more thready....so we're going to move this thread there.

Radio 4 have a brilliant programme called More or Less for people fascinated by this sort of thing.

Thank you pip, I've had a quick look and it looks really interesting. I might print some off to read tomorrow (I know...I am a luddite)

at "more thready"

bumping

Thanks Kate.

I lurve More or Less!

I lurve More or Less as well.

There's lots of food-related misleading stats as well. I remember all the claims like "94% fat-free" on so-called diet foods.

IMHO breakfast cereals owe their entire reputation as a "healthy" food to their claims in years past of being fortified with vitamins, and this providing "50% of your RDA of Vitamin C" etc etc.

There's an advert for follow-on milk that compares itself to cows' milk, saying it has 20 times the amount of iron than cows' milk (or something like that). What it doesn't say is that if your child was iron-deficient, they'd do far better eating other iron-rich foods.

It's like the '8 out of 10 coffee lovers prefer Costa to Starbucks' poster has a definition of coffee lovers somewhere, think it was to do with number of cups per week...

just fancied bumping this...

Can I point you in the direction of this:

www.wellcome.ac.uk/Education-resources/Education-and-learning/Big-Picture/All-issues/Number-Crunching/index.htm

Really interesting read.

Thanks!

bumping this for any more thoughts or examples

Um, because they are near schools or other places where more accidents would happen regardless of speed limit?

lol thanks for keeping this going!

I saw a lecture by "Professor Risk" the other day.

understandinguncertainty.org/

I liked the way he looked at things. Especially the idea that if you go for a half-hour run it extends your life by.....half an hour. Great if you like running.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Is it really that hard

"reduced risk" does not = "no risk"
"heightened risk" does not = "certainty"

these are all common words, we use them in the English language all the time. So why do so many people struggle so badly with this concept?

Hello.

You mentioned me in the OP and didn't PM me to tell me this was here!

I had to find out about it on a lottery thread!