"How to Lie with Statistics"
In all my years of teaching, I never dreamed that I would be teaching so many of these lessons to the general public.
And about such a serious issue. A life-and-death issue.
I have often played this "game" with my students. For example:
"How can I present these temperature data so that it gives the impression that there is global warming?"
"How can I present these same temperature data so that it gives the impression that there is global cooling?"
"How should we show the data so that the presentation is not biased in any way?"
"What context should we provide so that the reader will not be misled?"
This "game" teaches them to look carefully at data presentations, to look behind the data, and to understand how to analyze and interpret data with minimal bias.
In the genuine science literature, these sorts of games are not tolerated, because they are essentially dishonest, and genuine science is an endeavor in pursuit of the truth.
So when we catch a scientist playing this game they lose huge credibility, and it can be the end of their career.
But the lay media is teeming with such drivel, and no one seems to mind. So long as the biased presentations support the narrative du jour.
And the public seems to just lap it up and to regurgitate it willingly. The analytical critical mind seems to be out of fashion.
In the US, state by state, media by media source, it sometimes feels like we are playing a massive game of "whack a mole." Endlessly knocking down example after example of deliberately misconstrued and misleading statistics.
Every stone we turn over seems to expose yet another deception. Statistics that are deliberately designed to strike fear into the hearts of those who don't understand the numbers.
"Look at all those cases!"
"Look at that rate of increase!"
"That state is in big trouble!"
"We're running out of hospital capacity!"
"This county is a hot spot! One of the worst in the world!"
At least we know better, and we can spread the word.
We have caught them red-handed over and over again, deliberately, lying with statistics.
And along the way, our governments and the media have lost huge credibility.
In all my years of teaching, I never dreamed that I would be teaching so many of these lessons to the general public.
And about such a serious issue. A life-and-death issue.
I have often played this "game" with my students. For example:
"How can I present these temperature data so that it gives the impression that there is global warming?"
"How can I present these same temperature data so that it gives the impression that there is global cooling?"
"How should we show the data so that the presentation is not biased in any way?"
"What context should we provide so that the reader will not be misled?"
This "game" teaches them to look carefully at data presentations, to look behind the data, and to understand how to analyze and interpret data with minimal bias.
In the genuine science literature, these sorts of games are not tolerated, because they are essentially dishonest, and genuine science is an endeavor in pursuit of the truth.
So when we catch a scientist playing this game they lose huge credibility, and it can be the end of their career.
But the lay media is teeming with such drivel, and no one seems to mind. So long as the biased presentations support the narrative du jour.
And the public seems to just lap it up and to regurgitate it willingly. The analytical critical mind seems to be out of fashion.
In the US, state by state, media by media source, it sometimes feels like we are playing a massive game of "whack a mole." Endlessly knocking down example after example of deliberately misconstrued and misleading statistics.
Every stone we turn over seems to expose yet another deception. Statistics that are deliberately designed to strike fear into the hearts of those who don't understand the numbers.
"Look at all those cases!"
"Look at that rate of increase!"
"That state is in big trouble!"
"We're running out of hospital capacity!"
"This county is a hot spot! One of the worst in the world!"
At least we know better, and we can spread the word.
We have caught them red-handed over and over again, deliberately, lying with statistics.
And along the way, our governments and the media have lost huge credibility.
