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Struggle With Statistics? Your 'Fixed Mindset' Might Be To Blame (arstechnica.com)
A new study in Frontiers in Psychology examined why people struggle so much to solve statistical problems, particularly why we show a marked preference for complicated solutions over simpler, more intuitive ones. Chalk it up to our resistance to change. From a report: The study concluded that fixed mindsets are to blame: we tend to stick with the familiar methods we learned in school, blinding us to the existence of a simpler solution. Roughly 96 percent of the general population struggles with solving problems relating to statistics and probability. Yet being a well-informed citizen in the 21st century requires us to be able to engage competently with these kinds of tasks, even if we don't encounter them in a professional setting. "As soon as you pick up a newspaper, you're confronted with so many numbers and statistics that you need to interpret correctly," says co-author Patrick Weber, a graduate student in math education at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Most of us fall far short of the mark.
Part of the problem is the counterintuitive way in which such problems are typically presented. Meadows presented his evidence in the so-called "natural frequency format" (for example, 1 in 10 people), rather than in terms of a percentage (10 percent of the population). That was a smart decision, since 1-in-10 a more intuitive, jury-friendly approach. Recent studies have shown that performance rates on many statistical tasks increased from four percent to 24 percent when the problems were presented using the natural frequency format.
Part of the problem is the counterintuitive way in which such problems are typically presented. Meadows presented his evidence in the so-called "natural frequency format" (for example, 1 in 10 people), rather than in terms of a percentage (10 percent of the population). That was a smart decision, since 1-in-10 a more intuitive, jury-friendly approach. Recent studies have shown that performance rates on many statistical tasks increased from four percent to 24 percent when the problems were presented using the natural frequency format.
Part of the problem is the counterintuitive way in which such problems are typically presented. Meadows presented his evidence in the so-called "natural frequency format" (for example, 1 in 10 people), rather than in terms of a percentage (10 percent of the population). That was a smart decision, since 1-in-10 a more intuitive, jury-friendly approach. Recent studies have shown that performance rates on many statistical tasks increased from four percent to 24 percent when the problems were presented using the natural frequency format.
I've heard this argument before, and I just don't get it. "Percent" means per hundred, as the word is derived from the Latin "per centum," literally, "per hundred." It's a natural frequency format, just as much as saying "1 in 10 people." It's saying "10 per 100" people. What's so confusing?!?
This is a problem for a certain kind of ... people.
Those who are ideologistic instead of curious. Those who call everyone who changed his views because he learned something new a "flip-flopper" too. (And not just those who say whatever pleases the listener of the day.)
Those who are dumb enough that they don't know the constant stream of doubt that comes from constantly coming up with all the things that something could be wrong.
Which is, sadly, true for a much bigger part of the population than we'd like to admit.
But please don't act like it's a normal, human thing.
It's a thing of extreme stupidity. "Voter"-level stupidity. Opinionator-level stupidity. Believer-level stupidity. Triggered-passive-thinker-level stupidity.
It may be the norm where you live. It may even be the norm where I live. But unless we want to flop over, give up like losers, and act like the Idiocracy is a done deal, ... it's not what we should ever call normal.
Percent is and its cousins are fine, but "natural frequency" is anything but "natural" to me. I have to convert it to make sense of it.
Also "jury friendly"? Does "success" here mean to get a conviction?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
or did they also avoid using words with more that 5 letters? #MAGA!
I've thought long and hard about this problem. After wrestling with it for a few years I'm ready to support a radical shift in public education.
Use the term "math" (or "maths", depending on your version of English) to refer to arithmatic, geometry, and algebra
"quantithinking classes".
Dump trigonometry and calculus from the curriculum. Replace with statistics, probability, design of experiments, and critical thinking. Call this new subject "quantitative thinking" (or whatever name you want) and give it equal billing as as language, math, science, literature, and physical education.
Recent studies have shown that performance rates on many statistical tasks increased from four percent to 24 percent when the problems were presented using the natural frequency format.
Hmm, let me make that more intuitive and jury friendly for everyone: recent studies have shown that performance rates on many statistical tasks increased from 1 in 25 to about 1 in 4 when the problems were presented using the natural frequency format.
Being exposed to so much of this statistics, do sports fans use these in their real life? When they buy a car and they read a review, "10% chance of major repair in five years" do they think as often as "that kicker misses extra point"?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
... since 1-in-10 a more intuitive, jury-friendly approach.
Which would be 1-in-12.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Maybe:
1) People who can't understand statistics shouldn't be put in charge of important decisions (un-democratic, I know), or
2) Statistics education needs to be made mandatory to qualify as high school educated in this country.
If you can't figure out 10% is 1-in-10, you have no hope of wading through the standard level of obfuscation added to any publication when discussing statistics.
had to make some statistics about the collected data, I wonder if they had a fixed mindset...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As we're talking about statistics here, let call out any statement that was presented as a fact: "With 100% certainty, we report that the study concluded with that fixed mindsets are to blame with 100% certainty.... Roughly 96 percent of the general population (with 0% margin of error) struggles with solving problems relating to statistics and probability (with 100% certainty that our test problem is representative of most real problems). Yet being a well-informed citizen in the 21st century with requires us with 100% certainty to be able to engage competently with these kinds of tasks.... "As soon as you pick up a newspaper, with 100% certainty you're confronted with so many numbers and statistics that you need to interpret correctly," says co-author Patrick Weber, with 100% certainty a graduate student in math education at the University of Regensburg in Germany. With 100% certainty, most of us fall far short of the mark."
"As soon as you pick up a newspaper, you're confronted with so many numbers and statistics that you need to interpret correctly," says co-author Patrick Weber, a graduate student in math education at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Most of us fall far short of the mark.
Or maybe just acknowledge that the vast majority of humanity is just plain stupid, and that you are part of it...
Video of some good progressive thrash music
If you can't make the numbers dance like the Bistromathics drive on the Heart of Gold, you don't understand statistics.
10%. 9 to 1 against. 1 in 10. They all mean exactly the same thing. If you haven't grasped this yet, it's not because you have a "fixed mindset". It's because you don't understand statistics.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Shouldn't that be from 1-in-25 to 1-in-4?
Marketing, lobbying, politics.
... which is better?
I think that's enough to show that we need to normalize fractions into a common unit.
Lets use "ppm" for very low amount, and "percent" for higher quantities.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
I'm a mathematician.
The second someone digs out statistics, I can always pick 20 holes with their methodology used, presentation of, choice of, or analysis of their numbers. Usually, I could make things come out "oppositely" with only minor tweaking and use of the other statistics from the same dataset that they discarded out of hand, and usually I could provide much better justification for the numbers I used than the ones they did.
People use statistics to back up their claims. That's it. And if you go looking hard enough and present statistics to do that, you can ignore all the stuff that doesn't match your claims. It's really easy to do.
And because nobody understand statistics (I would posit this category even includes statisticians!), you can get away with it.
I like to shout at shampoo adverts when they say "Women agree*" where the * leads you to a footnote saying they tested 19 women and 67% of those agreed... so you're telling me that, actually, worldwide, 12.7 women agreed... What the hell kind of selection criteria did you use to get that, and what use is that if you don't specify that they were random women from the street in a controlled trial rather than, say, the people who work in the office?
The old saying is right - there are lies, damn lies and statistics. If someone quotes statistics are you, assume it's a lie. It almost always is. Even when it's not, it's merely the portion of the truth that can be spun positively if you don't mind looking through an n-dimensional kaleidoscope at the data.
And what are they trying to do by telling you this? They're trying to tell you "Hey, look, you're stupid and have no idea what's going on and actually everyone else is really onboard". Statistics are used as the worst kind of "peer pressure" - if they are trying to convince you of something, rather than inform you.
Statistics can be incredibly useful, very revealing, and can lead to a better understanding. If you get them from a professional. Who'll then tell you what the statistics *mean* and whether or not they have caveats.
If you get them from shampoo ads and random junk on the Internet, they are no better than any other "fact" spewed at you in such a manner... wrong.
(Interesting fact: There's a TV program called QI, in which all kinds of "you'll never believe" stuff is presented in what's supposed to be a highly intellectual quiz show. QI facts are heavily researched, almost always counter-intuitive or contrary to what everyone has been told, and they spend years with some of the cleverest people from the top universities doing research for each series. And in one episode they reveal that the portion of facts that they themselves got wrong, or which have changed since, was over 50%).
If someone quotes statistics at you, don't just nod and go "Oh really?" because you're then likely to repeat that statistic without every checking it. The correct response is to think "What's he trying to convince me of?". Because you don't use statistics for anything else.
And unless you understand, truly understand, statistics, you know that any kind of amateur data-gathering or analysis by even the most well-intentioned people is a bottomless pit of potential failure.
Hell, to be honest, 99% of the time, I can't even work out the right answer for some statistics so I make it up and say 99%.
9 out of 10 [specific] people [we interviewed in the north side of Chicago] like the Cubs.
FTFY
Thereafter, it takes a SPECTACULAR level of blockheaded arrogance (I'm not going to learn, and you can't make me ...
And this differs from the state of affairs in America . . . how?
Maybe it feels "natural" for a single reference, but for a comparison it is useless, unless the group is exactly the same. And if the group is 100 . . . . we're done here.