Well....we'll see what you guys think of this one. I know it's a little different from usual but once I read about a few of these stories I had to make a video about the topic. Hope you guys enjoy! Next video will be about the mathematics of crime and some of the things seen in the show 'Numb3rs'.
Loved the video. I also liked Numb3rs and cannot wait to see what you do with it. Rossmo's Formula blew my mind Edit: loved how you perfectly generalized people on the interwebs
We interviewed 1000 people that have played russian roulette before. 100% of them survived the game. Conclusion: Russian roulette is completely safe to play.
@@boombam9611 no no haha the only way someone could be interviewed after playing Russian Roulette was if they survived. It is impossible to interview people who have played Russian Roulette and died because of it, so of course any such interviewing would yield a 100% survival rate.
This one is called survivor's bias. There's a good example of the Brits determining which parts of a fighter plane to add armor to, and they used the planes that returned to make the decision.
I found it disconcerting that I couldn't find the median life expectancy for most countries. Mean is very unreliable. It can be warped with outliers and noise. Median is far more reliable. So when trying to compare the U.S. to Japan, I only found that the U.S. median life expectancy is 84.5. I have no idea what Japan's is.
yup. especially because of how messed up the case a whole was. they really fucked that woman over for a disease people are only just beginning to understand
The conviction was later overturned. On the second appeal it was shown the statistics from Dr. Meadow were incorrect and cases like that happen much more frequently than suggested by the figure (1 in 73mil).
Such is life my friend. Sometimes the whole world is against you even though you haven't done anything. Just remember that when you are judging other people in the future. Never think that there is no way you are wrong.
@@mrlantan3318 I remember reading about this, but I think the reason it was overturned was because as medical science advanced, they found some genetic reason for the deaths.
I remember my algebra teacher telling us about this, saying that statistics show people with bigger feet are better at math. None of us could have guessed that the statistic studied all ages, so it included babies and toddlers.
That's why in my AP stats class my teacher made it a huge deal to put the context, the group we where studying, any stratification, the way we got the data, any sort of bias that could came up, and error we couldn't account for. Stats are so easily capable to be miscommunicated even if you meant well. Someone could take a number you put out there in good intention and use it to push an agenda while ignoring key aspects of the stat. A stat isn't just the probability, it's the context and situation it was taken with.
I literally believed you quite a lot before finishing the sentence. Afterwards I realized that you started the sentence with "Statistics have shown" which made me realize that it already fooled me.... good one
Lessons: 1. In graphs, always include 0 2. When giving percentage changes, always provide both percent increase (if it doubled, its a 100% increase) and percentage point increase together (if it went from 1% to 2%, it increased by 1 pp)
Including 0 isn't actually the pertinent part. What's important is having a consistent scale that includes 0. You can have a graph that includes 0 but also has a break in its axis. Like if you have a graph with data in a field that goes from 0 to 100 but all of the data is grouped in the 80s, you could have the axis of the graph go: 0, 10 ... 70 80 90 100. This includes 0 but still suffers the same deceptive look as if it didn't.
@@Strawberryfreak Well yes but that's kinda besides the point. It's easy to just tell people to think more, but the thing is people might not know _what_ or _how to think._ There's a difference between telling people to just be critical and teaching people to think critically. That's where knowledge comes in. Knowing there's a significant difference between percentage increase and percentage point increase is something to be learned. Or knowing how much it matters how the data was derived and out of which group the percentage is drawn from. It's never just "think about it first", it's also realizing what there is to think about, what do we mean by the fact points given. Out of those specified definitions and the context, a "fact" means nothing at all. Not everybody, without being taught to, realizes this matters. It's one thing to be sceptical about a statistics in a title of a news article. It's a whole another thing to know that news headlines aren't statistics, that just because something was said, the reality of the matter is only revealed once you know the details. People also easily assume a moral value for pieces of trivial information. Just saying the rate of dropping out of studies has increased, for example, doesn't mean we're saying it's a bad thing. We aren't saying anything at all about whether it's good or bad with that piece of knowledge unless we specify why and justify such moral evaluation separately. This is also one of those things a lot of people don't necessarily know or realize to question. Categorical scepticism isn't necessarily smart either, and this idea of never trusting what we're being told instead of practicing curiosity and aiming to _know_ more is what has contributed to mistrust in media and authorities of information. It goes from "think first" to "don't trust at face value" to "don't trust media" to "we're being lied to and new information should be categorically rejected because authorities of information are by nature untrustworthy". No, the point isn't to be sceptical, it's to understand what it means to say certain things and why it matters how things are spoken about. Being sceptical for the sake of it paradoxically doesn't make people any less susceptible for being manipulated, in fact less so.
THAT WRONG you simple do not know statistics if i put half of your body in the freezer, and but half of you in the oven , and we make statistical analysis of your body temp we will get your body is in IDEAL temperature of course we know that you will die in this scenario does statistic lie?? NO the problem is YOU and you do not release what the number represents it not a problem of statisitc mate its a problem that people have not idea what the number represent
@@sonaruo That is rather harsh as OP did not say that statistics lie. He, in fact, stated that any story you want can be weaved by using the same data. You just decided to take the moral high ground when OP's claim was completely valid. I think everyone understands that statistics by itself is not the evil here. It is willful or unwitting use of incorrect or partial statistics that can potentially cause lot of harm.
@@AnkhArcRod sorry mate but the wording is plain wrong "whatever story you want to tell" no mate you cna nto use the math to say that blanc is white and white is black you simpel can not. but if the people do not know the numbers and the precise wording then people will assume something different because they consider the number represent something that it is not thats not a fault of statistic or that statistic said that to begin with example is the 100% and the 5% raise the wording is not the exact same its tiny different so you know how to use that number they give you since they are 2 different things the 100% is the rate of measurement while the 5% is the net increment. when you are given that the wording is slight different so you can say what it is and use them properly. now if the for the people the rate of changing something and the actual speed is the sam eis ther problem my math professor said this word of wisdom you think you do nto need math, what you teach today you will never use, but these numbers will be used in your every day life and because you will be unabme to understand what they represent they will maniip[ulate to do what ever they want. because he have books written , we teach something to people it does not mean that all people will understand it and comprehend it geee if that was truw 100% of the population will be scientist with doctor level and we will be going in another galaxy to settle down by now. and statistic is easy and real straight forward to do it if you want real massacre go is probabilities the majority of the problems are counter intuitive and many times to sovle them and be sure that its the correct one we end up brute force the problem
@@sonaruo The OP of this thread basically said the same thing this video said. It is EASY to use statiscs to form a story that you want to happen, or you can use data to grant the impression you want by with holding context. Yes if you do not understand the data your more likely to belief it but if I said out of 1000 people who applied to a job with 400 openings 0% percent of women who applied where accepted. Its very easy to understand no women where given a job. This is the sort of situation that was talked about its miss leading and with holding info. If I told you 1000 people applied to become a male stripper and 1 women applied who did not get the job is very different intent of presentation to 100% of the women who applied did not get the job. I hate % with a passion its easy to mislead as a 100% increase is alarming but you can also say there was a 5% increase for the same data. I mean you can even use that term a 100% increase if the sample size simply decrease. It depends if you look at all the data or just the increase. Look at house prices in NZ and you will see a misrepresentation of what they are increasing by as its better to use the 5% but if you want to create a panic or a rush to do something use the 100%.
@caprice.t One thing though. Its not easier, its just more likely. For the average person It would be easier to get tô work for Walmart, but since only people with a decent level of instruction apply to Harvard, its more likely that these people would succeed, but for a regular person It would be almost Impossible
I doubt Walmalt has a 2.6% acceptance rate, but it's not hard to imagine that out of all the Walmarts in the world, one of them somewhere has a 2.6% acceptance rate due to an overabundance of unskilled workers applying.
Since there are some people with less then 2 arms, the world average number of arms is somewhere below 2. Meaning if you have 2 arms you have an above average number of arms. Good for you!
@@martimsalvador9186 well, assuming there's more than 18 people with 1 arm less than 2 (not even counting those without any arms) then the 1 person with 18 arms more than 2 wouldn't bring up the average enough to make average≥2
Within my statistics class in college we actually had to identify misleading charts and graphs and explain how they were designed to mislead. I saw graphs that were upside down, with offset scales, and even the use of specific colors to elicit a response.
So...AI have been removing my comment several times now because of certain words. So for this comment to make any sense, I need to clarify what I mean by certain words: LowVibb19 = that thing that is spreading around the world that people are shit scared of even though it has a 99% survival rate. Max = That thing that they want you to take into your bloodstream so that a certain industry can earn billiions of dollars even though it doesn't even work as intended. Now here's my comment: Here's another one for ya: You can also cheat with the statistics with how you define something. For example: They don't define a person as being fully Max'ed until two weeks after they've had the 2nd LowVibb19 Max. So anyone who gets seriously injured or die right after the first Max or within the first two weeks after the 2nd Max, will be defined as "un Max iated" in the statistics. So all the hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of people world wide who have been seriously injured or died from the LowVibb19 Max will not be counted in the statistics. Clever, huh? I personally know several people this has happened to.
Sorry, your first statement is OBVIOUSLY WRONG. If EVERYONE EVER has died on Earth -- who posted the video? Who's replying to you? Who, in fact, posted your comment?
My Grandpa used to say, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” So much truth in that. I’ve always kept that in the back of my head when I see statistics….especially statistics that push a narrative.
Youll be happy to know then that these examples are famous in the statistics world and actually *were* in the first few lessons of my probability theory course :)
Yes, it's how statistics can give you the power to lie, and how to use them to push your own agenda. Maybe they should teach this in highschool honestly.
I ran into this recently with my job as an auditor. We evaluated the reasonableness of a company’s marketing expense by comparing it to revenue. The idea was that if their revenue went up, it was due to increased marketing expenses (I know there can be other factors too). Anyways, most months their expense hovered around 2% of revenue. One month it was 3.5%. My staff told me “that’s less than a 2% increase; it’s very trivial”. I said “that’s a 60% increase- it’s worth looking into”.
I spend the same on marketing each month and only make adjustments periodically. If sales are up one month it might be 5% of sales spent on marketing. If sales drop for a month it might be 8% spent. But I didn’t change what I spent.
@@fivebooks8498 Since your marketing budget is fixed, if sales are up next month then your marketing expensive percentage (MEP) would be lower than 5%, if sales are down compared to starting month only then your MEP would go higher than 5%.
I read one on which countries had the largest increase in murder rates. New Zealand had an increase of 300 percent , however if you looked at the actual numbers they went from one murder in a year to 3 . I think I would be willing to take my chances
That's per 100k population. To put it in perspective, for that equivalent year, that's a 52% chance of being killed compared to living in USA. However, two years prior, there was only a 13% chance relative to USA, with a roughly 1/5 chance over the past 10 years. The reason I point out USA is all the gun-related deaths vs. NZ which has much stricter firearms laws. However you look at 2.6 vs 5.1 (rounded) / 100k being high or low, it's interesting how many people say NZ is so safe and USA is dangerous -- future years will determine if NZ retraces lower.
@@junkbond4882 According to wikipedia New Zealand had 126 cases of intentional homicide in 2019, a rate of 2.6/100k. During the Christchurch mosque shooting that year 51 people were killed, i.e. nearly half of all intentional homicide victims in 2019 thereby close to doubling the rate per 100k. The 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas killed 61 people. With total intentional homicide victims north of 20000 that year this event didn't have any impact on the rate per 100k for the US. Context is key...
@@yeckiLP in Germany we say "vertraue nie einer Statistik die du nicht selbst gefälscht hast", basically "never trust statistics you yourself didn't manipulate"
@@kobakun584 people who swim spend more time in water, leading to more people drowning. Not learning to swim makes you more likely to drown if thrown in water, but less likely to drown in your life.
I feel enlightened. I'm not stupid by any means, but I obviously lacked basically all sense of statistics. It's unfortunate I wasn't ever introduced to the subject throughout my schooling. I feel like this video will make me think so much more than I have been. And... knowledge is power. Thanks, so much.
I feel like statistics should be a required class, over something like trigonometry. You’re not using that in life unless you’re in a math heavy field, but statistics are everywhere
Is statistics not a compulsory topic in mathematics there? Where do you live? In ours it was compulsory from I don't even remember when but I think it was middle school before we ever learned about trigs
"the woman lost her children due to natural causes, was accused of murdering them, was sent to jail for 3 years, received a lot of public backlash, and died of alcohol poisoning 4 years later" jesus christ, that is just terrible
That is why a jury shouldn't make a decision based off of circumstancial evidence alone. No one should be found guilty unless forensics show that they are guilty.
@@Gamerboy365ify The jury was fucking retarded, by doing the statistic, they disproved the child dying from SIDS, not proving the mother killed it. I just dont get it...
Statistics: 95% chance of winning, you should take this bet. *Takes the bet and lost Statistics: I said a 95% chance of winning not that you will win, I can't help the fact that you're a loser.
100% statisticians made at least one correct statement about statistics, which many non-statisticians never have. Therefore, statisticians are more trustworthy. Which means you really should trust a statistician you just met more than you should trust a non-statistician you have known for your whole life.
@@Kasiarzynka Many is a tricky word in statistics. A responsible statistician will not use this word in this context as "many" can be interpreted as any number greater than 100. Since a non-responsive statistician has a higher rate of using misleading statistics, I will not trust you here.
It's the "science" that knows every other science better than the scientists in those areas without knowing anything about the science or so some of my former bosses think.
Magic Gonads Here‘s the thing: 100% of X is X. So if X increases by 100% (of X), it increases by X, so there‘s an additional X is added to the original X, which means that it was doubled. If X decreases by 100%, it decreases by X, so there‘s X subtracted from the original X, which means that it went to zero. Clearer now?
I had an Electrical Engineering professor who said that “graphs with suppressed zeros should be made illegal.” You have shown why professor Crosno was correct,👍
my temptation is to say “absolutely yes” but i think we might be better off trying to explain this phenomenon to as many people as possible because the people who are committed to lying might find a way around it if we make it illegal lol
Man I teach Excel. And for some reason Excel automatically sets other number different than zero in bar charts. The user has to perform some extra steps just to make the bar chart look like a real comparison.
It depends SOOO much on context, though. If you were showing a graph of a person’s body temperature with vs without medication, starting the graph at 0 would make no sense because you would barely be able to tell a difference of 4 degrees, even though that can mean the difference between a mild fever and someone needing hospitalization.
Fun fact - the author of that book "Darrell Huff" was actually a tobacco industry lobbyist and that book was a part of that propaganda. You can check it here: statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2012/04/27/how-to-mislead-with-how-to-lie-with-statistics/
I was sooo confused when he started saying people who had head lights were healthier... Then I saw the word "head lice" appear on my screen and felt really stupid.
However people who own cars (thus have headlights) are probably wealthier than those who can't afford cars and wealthier people can then also afford medicine etc.
Illianor123 you must not travel much. Most people don't own cars and managed to hit 80+ fairly easily. There's literally no correlation between being owning a car and the potential state of health of a person.
If only my statistics professor taught like this, maybe I would have understood more. He always said something about "Only work with the data you are given", which works for school, but is obviously flawed in the real world (like in all of these examples)
Keeping this in mind is very important, especially in the world of media. You've shown how differences in presentation can twist public perception of an event. Now add the arbitrary choice of which piece of information is covered, the wording as well as many other factors and you can be manipulated, on purpose or not, and end up believing something completely untrue without anyone having lied.
Using your headlights is unhealthy. Statistically speaking, people who use their headlights at night are more likely to die from disease or illness than people who drive at night without headlights.
The whole thing reminds me of a quote a friend whose into this sort of thing told me once. "Nobody who wants you to think a certain way ever tells you the whole story"
To be fair though, it would take too long to tell the whole story of most things, and you're assuming the person you're speaking to is educated and aware enough of both sides already
@@Christoff070 The real trick isn't to lie to people. The real trick is to get people so emotionally invested in what you're saying that they'll believe in it even when faced with conflicting evidence that is true OR false. You can pretty easily get people wound up into what you're selling without lying, too. You just need a couple half-truths and a superficial comparison or two.
I have a degree in statistics. You did a very good job explaining these nuisances and yet this is still only scratching the surface of how wonky and manipulative statistical techniques can be.
It is a really good start though. I can't seem to reach anyone that doesn't already mildly understand how a statistic is even brought into fruition, nevermind the why. This introduction on the topic will likely save me at least an hour of my next conversation when pointing out the way media covers current events. Such as the scamdemic and inflation, or our country's spending vs GDP. These media outlets utilize these same techniques to sway people into voting for Representatives that are going to push legislation that, at the core, doesn't make any sense.
I don't have your credentials, but I do have 6 undergraduate and 6 graduate credits in statistics. I agree with you that David did a good job but there are so many other ways people lie with statistics. One of the big ones is when a single study comes out to prove a point and it's taken as gospel. Most people aren't aware of the need for an independently replicated study that produces the same results, they just assume the solo study is valid.
@@danielreshenterprises6174 well said. I agree 100% with the notion that one study without peer review is opinion, not science. The great thing about science is that findings are open to be replicated and if there are different results, we can all learn why. The best question and, in my opinion, the beginning and demise of our mortal selves, starts and ends, with the question, "WHY?".
@M M that is a very good point. This is where intellectualism and understanding of where the "peer review"originated from, comes into play. I preached to my son constantly, who recently turned 18 years of age, that the device that is in his pocket has unlimited knowledge. Back in my day we had to consult the encyclopedia Britannica. It is much easier today to learn about something, anything, that we don't already know.
I used to teach this material in one of my college classes. Glad to see people are still recognizing how important this early form of "targeted marketing" was to the future of internet ads.
...If media was honest.... FACEPALM CITY this is why I DON"T use FB....and other sites....yeah I know YT is not Immune to this tactic . . ..... Fun Fact '100% of People that commented on this video watch RUclips at some point' lol
The Sally Clark case is so sad. Imagine losing both of your infant children because of something you cant control- and then getting sent to prison and demonized for what happened to you.
I really hope that Sally and all of her immediate family members genetics were taken into account because rare genetic disorders can be very prevalent and over represented in a family with a faulty genetics
I just don’t understand how a doctor couldn’t see how those two events could be reasonably dependent, not independent. I have little medical education, but even I could assume immediately that someone who gave birth to a dead child once may reasonably have some type of health condition that could lead to a second problematic childbirth.
@@dathunderman4 well the prosecution was operating under the assumption of guilt: they found a doc who would say what they wanted and didn't waste time trying to see if it actually held up scrutiny
The case of Sally Clark sounds very similar to a now proven link of genetic defect causing death in very young. 60 Minutes Australia aired a similar incident of a woman, jailed so far, for 18yrs, her surname Folbigg, last night 29Aug2021. She lost 4 young children. She has lost her latest appeal based on the statistics rather than the new scientific study.
The really sad thing is not just how easy it is to deceive other people using statistics, it's also how easy people unintentionally deceive themselves using statistics.
@@EvenTheDogAgrees you are forgetting that if anyone is missing limbs it brings the average under 4(2 arms, 2 legs) which means that anyone who has 2 arms and 2 legs than they have an above average number of limbs.
Holy shit. I don't know how RUclips's algorithm actually found me a small-ish channel worth watching, but for once it did something right. Very entertaining and informative. Keep it up.
@@randomxnp Very true. I just wish RUclips was able to find me more content like this because finding diamonds in the rough is a very rare occasion for me.
Every now and them despite their best effort RUclips does recommend a video you are interested in and like. Just be careful on your search. S&L scandal gives some interesting sexual practices (BDSM). Makes you wonder about the people running the place
Statistics, that's how. Only Google knows the details, but this type of recommendation algorithm is pretty much ALL statistics (with a lot of clever matrix mathematics to figure it out quickly).
Theres a lot of people who purchase pregnancy tests that end up not being pregnant. Prenatal vitamins might actually correlate better since people who are trying to get pregnant or know they are pregnant purchase them.
@@officergreg1318 Yeah, for sure. It still missed the point that was made in the video though. The guy was talking about women that already knew they were pregnant and how shopping patterns might reveal who they are. Women that already know they're pregnant don't buy pregnancy tests. Still, I like the joke.
It’s almost like the context of data is removed on purpose to generate a narrative that looks better for a particular group. It’s a weird world where people both don’t believe in numbers but vow by numbers when it’s convenient.
Most if it boils down to the fact that most people are not mathematicians, but also don't want to seem dumb by admitting they didn't learn enough about mathematics to understand what the numbers actually mean. if people would worry less about what they seem to be and start to worry more about what they actually are, this might chance, I doubt it will be any time soon.
One of the troubles there though is the hired gun. In the video example the prosecution was able to hire a mathematical gunslinger to argue their case for them. Either he was incompetent or dishonest in doing so. The defense was apparently unable to find a gunslinger of their own to explain the problems with the prosecution's argument. Not everybody's lawyer happens to date an expert. Whatever else I did with my degree in math, I was resolved that I did not want to be a gunslinger for some corporation (or think tank with an agenda). Yet doubtless I might have made a better living as a gunslinger and be highly regarded in society. I might even be able to tell myself that I was shooting on the side of justice.
@@BlacksmithTWD This is part of the problem definitely. At the same time, there is also a large element of confirmation bias as OC says. If it supports our narrative or fits our worldview, it's extremely credible and transparent. If not, we find 1,000 things to criticize about it.
brush your teeth my nigga, google home can smell your breath foo. also there is an pluggin could y0tub3 @d8l0ck3r spell this 1ee7 phrase in your browesers plugin market place search box and and install it your browser
This is actually a very touching and interesting video. Dropping off a comment to let you know that your video made its way to my graduate school class discussion. Cheers!
Three statisticians went duck hunting. When a duck flew overhead the first one shot and missed 3 feet to the left, the second one shot and missed 3 feet to the right, and the third statistician yelled "We got him!"
People should understand the difference between "percent" and "percentage point". 5 in 100 increasing to 10 in 100 is a 100 percent increase, and also an increase of 5 percentage points.
I liked because I found your comment helpful. I was trying to remember how to say it. But I disagree with the notion that since people should know the difference, that gives us free rein to use percent changes without also specifying what the percentage point change is. Just because some people are ignorant doesn't mean it's right to take advantage of it.
@@ex0stasis72 go tell that to all the marketing departments that use this garbage to increase sales and make money for their company. I'm sure they'll be willing to stop because you feel it's unfair to all the idiots out there
@Samuel Isaac just thats how statistics can work, thats why they can be interpreted pretty easily to proof whatever you want to proof; and for such statements its irrelevant if its an outlier or anything and it is still correct; like you said "shouldn't" be counted, but that does not mean, that he won't be counted
@@Jp-ue8xz or it could be that they were showing students how easy it was too manipulate numbers so they're more mindful of how the way they right things down effects people
@@allabouthh Interesting. The point of why I said this was just to say that his prof probably didn't come up with this line on his own. But knowing that a lot of people are quoting Goebbels is even more funny.
Not only are you the master of 90’s cable quality RUclips comedy gold, but you’re like the cool math teacher in the 90s that actually gets me to be enthused in stat.
I don't know why schools push calculus much harder than stat, when stat is actually useful in life for most while calculus isn't. Maybe because calculus is more fancy? Hell, statistic isn't even required for all math majors, whereas courses like analysis on manifold is. The number of people who might find the latter useful probably won't amount to four figures in the country. And if you subtract teachers, barely three figures. It's right "up there" with art history.
A cool thing that my language (polish) has (and uses) that english really doesnt(that i know of) is having an established difference between "percentages" and "percantage points". You use the first one like multiplication so 5 percent + 50 percent[of 5] is 7.5% and the second one as adding 5 percent + 50 percentage points = 55%. This basically means that as long as you read the text accurately you wont be misled
For court cases. Statistics should only be used as supplementary evidence to actual hard evidence. It's terrifying to hear or believe that entire cases were set guilty purely on statistics.
@@Eclypso02 proving guilt has to be 99% beyond any reasonable doubt. Sometimes statistics can push it over the boundary. It's all about convincing the jury.
@@Eclypso02 Because you don't know what the defense will say regarding the proof. Statistics can make the defense tougher, but I don't think anyone should use statistics as the only argument of guilt.
Or "science", the next most misleading source of information. Science is always changing and updating, and when people get the idea in their heads that "science" is a hard-core, reliable vault of absolute certainty, they turn it into tyrannical dictators.
Seriously, the whole world needs to see this. Quote my professor shared with us “Never trust a statistic you haven’t faked yourself!” Basically in order to not get mislead by bad stats you need to yourself have some basic understanding and demand in depth explanations of the calculations
*"50% of people in the lowest quintile cannot afford food!"* This was a post that sparked lots of idiocy on Facebook. I had to break down the tax quintiles by irs.org then show that indeed if you make half of 12k a year you cannot afford to eat. And to make that at $7/hour you had to work less than 1000 hours which is less than 20 hours per week at a rate below federal minimum...it took days to get my point across that this doesn't represent any able bodied adult that is TRYING to work. *2 days a week can't pay all your bills* would have been a stupid headline though.
During a staff meeting, one of my managers complained that the number of performance appraisals she was expected to write had doubled over the prior year. The other managers looked shocked until I agreed with her and said "Yes, it has doubled. Now you do two instead of one". We all had a good laugh.
Isn't "the average person" similar to "a randomly selected person"? Would a way to create the same effect be "the average number of a person's hands is less than two" or do you have something better?
@@JonathanLyons7 "a randomly selected person " is the most common value, also known as Mode. The average is just compiling and comparing, most people have 2 hands, then you have a small amount of people that have 1 hand so the result would be something like 1.993 (I'm making up the number and also taking the possiblity of having more hands rather than less out of the equation as I assume that is at least less common). Which technically is less than 2.
@@JonathanLyons7 so if out of 20 students, everyone gets a 50/100 then the one person gets a 0, the average would be 47.5, technically less than 50. The example given by the previous user highlights an extreme case of this
Agent J yes, lets measure the worth of a life by counting the number of birthdays celebrated. and what feelesh meant was that the same data looks very different if viewed thru a different lens
@@aligator7181 You can divide the fraction itself. If you don't convert it into decimal you should be fine. Do you know a way that 1/3 could actually be divided exactly using numbers and symbols that represent actual mathematics vs those that simply show that it divides in a certain way. (sorry if the way I phrased this is wonky. It's 2am here.)
@@aligator7181 your logic is like a flatearthbeliver's XD Amusing bytheway, no bad meaning. I really enjoyed to read your words. If u cut something into half and isn't a very same any kind of amount after, u was not cut it half. Simple like that. The problem is that u major to human imperfection. Should not. 0.3333 (3 to infinitive) * 3 = 1 Your calculator knows that. There is a video about at Veritasium chanel in some math theme one
@@aligator7181 and u keep on major to human imperfection... ;) How can your calculator give a correct answer? Two steps to check it 1. 1/3 2. Result * 3 Result? 1 Just because we can't do something it doesn't mean it's impossible I gave a source Check it out Well explained by competent ppl I save some time and search the exact name of the video, sec
Great video. I unfortunately know a lot of people who need to see this information, yet still argue statistics in ways that favor their own beliefs instead of challenge them. It’s frustrating for sure.
Here's my favorite: An airplane comes back from an aeriel battle. The data shows that most of the damage was on the wings, the fuselage, and nowhere near the cockpit and engine. So, the engineers decided to refine the armor on the damaged parts of the plane.
Using statistics in court worries me a little since people should be proven guilty, not assumed guilty based on statistical models that are below 100%.
@@mikaelvirji5807 Things are rarely 100%, but if there's not a convincing case and evidence then I think statistics should not be used in an attempt to sway the jury.
For the “5% or 100%” question, the correct way to say it is either "the rates has increased by 100%", or "the rates has increased by 5 percent points". if you say the rates has increased by 5%" you mean that it has gone up from 5% to 5.25%.
these verbal missleads should be illeagal as language accurecy is imporatant for delivering correct info... someone should be brain washed to be extemely honest and be the employer in some news company so that we will get only correct numbers said in a none misleading way
the media has the obligation to avoid misleading statements and make things clear. in this case, I would avoid putting a figure in the title and use the actual numbers in the first paragraph.
Statistical probability should never be allowed in court. It has no bearing on anyone’s guilt or innocence. That is why we use witnesses or physical evidence. Great job my hillbilly friend.
yeah I think that it's now no longer allowed in court. There are so many ways to make it look like one thing and be a totally different thing. The more qualities you rack up, the less likely a specific person in a group is to match that description, but it still doesn't prove it *was* them, it proves it's unlikely it wasn't them. It feels dirty to put someone behind bars not because someone saw them do it, finger prints were found and they had intent to do it, but because it's unlikely that anyone else fitting the description of the eye witness(s) exists in that city. I feel like it goes against the "innocent until proven guilty" rule of the courts.
6:00 funny thing, In Swedish we have two words for percent. Procent ("percent") and Procentenheter ("units of percent"). In your example, the rate increased by 5 procentenheter(units of percent) and 100 procent(percent)
at first i thought 'okay, maybe that makes sense since presumably the people who use headlights more than people who don't are less likely to be in car crashes, and that would affect their 'health' but nah, i'm just dumb.
This has just made me realize how easily I believe anything presented in a professional manner, and how easy it is to downright lie through a small omission of facts. It is truly scary.
I've worked on Wall Street and in military recruiting. Those positions exposed me to the world of data manipulation on a level that most would never comprehend. The tools/software available to entities that monitor us will blow your mind.
Would it be too scary to learn germ theory relies on statistics manipulation? The entirety of modern medicine (germ theory) rests upon correlation of data, and never direct experiments.
Exactly! So why do you think there was such a push for electronic medical records? Retired RN who also worked a few years in IT supporting several EMR’s. Also wrote reports to farm data from these and then sent my “ raw” data to quality assurance dept so they could “ scrub” it to them report out to others. I had to tag data elements in the system in order for that to show on the reports. How I tagged it and how I wrote the report and then how they merged my data w other systems reports made the final reports. So….. do I believe all of this COVID data from hospitals?? 😂😂😂
Very very good video. It’s so important to understand statistics today. In the workplace. In the news (especially the way media reports covid stats). A constant tactic of news is to say the such and such has doubled or gone up 3 times without stating the denominator. Correlation is another common tactic I see in the workplace and in the news.
@Basically Al Capone in legal Look, this isn't basic intuition. not everything is JUST correlation either. You need to learn a p value and a hazard ratio, and learn to read a forest plot. stats arent this easily understood and people overcorrect, thinking EVERYthing under correlation is just that. No, there is a point where the chance of correlatiom is lower and lower and thus incresing chances of causation, especially with multiple explanations. This would be like observing the sun has gone up every morning for the past 2000 years. we don't know it will go up tomorrow, but it becomes so statistically impossible for it to not go up tomorrow, plus the use of astrophysic calculations, that it is "causation". in reality, everything is just a correlation we arbitrarily bump into the causation category until a better answer is found. This is typically based on the effect on humans. One of these examples would be chances of lung cancer from smoking. It's technically not causal, but do it enough in a population, and someone will invariably get it 100% of the time.
@@jenm1 If you look at the total deaths in the US compared to the last 5 years you find something weird. They have not significantly risen this year. Then look at deaths by cause in the US for the last 5 years. You will find that they are remarkably consistent up until 2020 when deaths by covid suddenly rise AND deaths from heart disease, cancer, influenza, ect. suddenly fall. So we must consider if something about covid or the circumstances around it is simultaneously good for heart disease, cancer, AND a large number of other causes of death or if (due to financially incentivizing hospitals for covid) we are massively misreporting deaths as caused by covid. Look at the context of the numbers. Not just the raw data. I wish you well.
Sarcastic Hue The statistics for corona virus will never be accurate. For one, there are people who get infected but never show symptoms,plus the fact that it takes to weeks for symptoms to develop in the first place. Also, in the UK, they on,y count the people who are hospitalized due to Coronavirus. The numbers will always be less than the real amount of cases.
DocInAbox They’re starting to do that in the US too. You get tested if you’re obviously sick. If not, no. Because that will push down the stats on how lethal this really is, and people can’t seem to figure out for themselves population vs. fatalities, and figure out the percentage on their own.
When I taught college-level statistics back in the 80s, I had one class session titled "How to lie with statistics" that went into examples just like these of exactly how people would try to mislead them with improperly used statistics. One of the other ones I covered was color scale manipulation with "heatmap" style graphs that use colors to indicate values. For example, a graph showing temperatures can influence what you think is "hot" or "cold" just based on what temperature is chosen as the midpoint of the red-blue transition. Or, two graphs can be shown side-by-side that have different color scales to make similar patterns look different, or vice-versa.
During WWII, the US government had research done on what parts of aircraft were most often damaged by enemy fire, to see if they could reduce aircraft loses by armoring those areas. After research was done, they had a list of aircraft parts that should be upgraded, but a senior official informed them that their research was done incorrectly, in that it counted what parts were found damaged on aircraft that made it back to base. He suggested that instead they should see what parts of aircraft were least often damaged on any aircraft that returned from missions, and to assume that aircraft which took damage to those areas had little chance of survival. So for example, lots of aircraft that survived missions came back with holes in their wings or fuselage, but very few aircraft that were hit in the engines or cockpits survived.
Shows that the method of the study is generally far more important than the results. Unfortunately, when we interpret studies we just read the results and try to assume the methods from those. I.e, results show that pets wrapped in wool blankets out-lived their naked counterparts by almost 4 years. Conclusion, wrap your pets in wool blankets. Methods: "50 household pets were held in a freezer at -20C for 5 years..."
The chance of there being somebody with your exact name, birth-date, weight, and appearance and hobbies are low enough, that I don't think it's reasonable to conclude that you actually exist.
In the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, there's a great quote related to this that I'm too lazy to look up. Roughly: in an infinite universe, there are an infinite number of worlds, including an infinite number of uninhabited worlds. The average population is thus zero, and we don't exist. Something like that.
No. There is never a 100% increase when something goes from 5% to 10%. For example if you where to ask all the employees of company A if they enjoy work and 10% of them say no, then you ask again a year latter and 20% of them say no is that a 100% increase of people who do not enjoy there job or is there 50% decrease in staff. The only thing you can draw from that is 10% more of the total staff is unhappy. If you where to say that last year we had 10 unhappy employees and now we have 20 yes that is a 100% increase, but that is a different question. Question one what percentage of our staff are unhappy as of x year Question two what percentage of our staff are unhappy as of x+1 year. What are the numbers of unhappy people we have in the work place in x year What are the numbers of unhappy people we have in the work place in x+1 year
@@generalharness8266 In the context of the video the number of the people that were in the sample of the population was not only the same but also known. It is true that you can't infer anything out of knowing only 2 percentages (not even that 10% more of the total staff is unhappy because which total staff are we talking about? if we are talking about the first one then you can't say that 10% more of those employees are unhappy because maybe they were fired later, the 20 percent has to do with the amount of people in the second sample, and if we are talking about the second one, again that first 10% has nothing to do with the second one.), but if you know that the numbers are the same then you can show that it's a 100% increace.
@@panosmpasiourasserrano7449 Not really. He askes at 6:21 in the sprit of this videa lets ask something else and that is which paints a more accurate picture and that is the a 10% increase will always more accuratly represent the data then every saying a 100% increase becasue to get that 100% incease you are no longer asking the same question. Please rewatch the vid at 14:43 and take note of how a different question while backed up with facts missrepresent the data. That is why I have said that 100% incease is not true as you have now changed the qestion you asked.
I believe the real solution isnt teaching more about statistics, since I doubt anyone in my class learned anything meaningful. Instead, it's how the subject matter is being taught. If everything in school was taught in the same manner as this video then I'm sure students would be learning much more
Well....we'll see what you guys think of this one. I know it's a little different from usual but once I read about a few of these stories I had to make a video about the topic. Hope you guys enjoy! Next video will be about the mathematics of crime and some of the things seen in the show 'Numb3rs'.
Loved the video. I also liked Numb3rs and cannot wait to see what you do with it.
Rossmo's Formula blew my mind
Edit: loved how you perfectly generalized people on the interwebs
It was interesting, I like these videos.
It was a spectacular video. Thanks a lot for those crime stories.
MajorPrep do videos on architecture and architectural engineering
Would you consider doing a video on game theory?
We interviewed 1000 people that have played russian roulette before. 100% of them survived the game. Conclusion: Russian roulette is completely safe to play.
1000 Jewish people were interviewed after being released from concentration camps. You know what, I won't go there.
yes , everyone survived.... with an unloaded revolver.
@@boombam9611 no no haha the only way someone could be interviewed after playing Russian Roulette was if they survived. It is impossible to interview people who have played Russian Roulette and died because of it, so of course any such interviewing would yield a 100% survival rate.
@@hrthrhs I’m pretty sure that’s the point of the original comment
This one is called survivor's bias. There's a good example of the Brits determining which parts of a fighter plane to add armor to, and they used the planes that returned to make the decision.
If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.
Woah. Dark way of saying it, but I see you
@@SisypheanSeas13 perfect!
I'm "stealing" this quote, but I'll use in portuguese!
I might use this haha, brilliant phrase
@@claudiomaiasantos How do you say it in portuguese?
I found it disconcerting that I couldn't find the median life expectancy for most countries. Mean is very unreliable. It can be warped with outliers and noise. Median is far more reliable.
So when trying to compare the U.S. to Japan, I only found that the U.S. median life expectancy is 84.5. I have no idea what Japan's is.
RUclips occasionally gets the recommendations right.
Lol yes
Agreed. This has earned a sub!
Only around 14.3% of the time though
@@billyusher4907 76.3% of all statistics are made up.
Cant agree more
the story of the mother losing her children and being convicted with stats really hit me... like deeply.
yup. especially because of how messed up the case a whole was. they really fucked that woman over for a disease people are only just beginning to understand
The conviction was later overturned. On the second appeal it was shown the statistics from Dr. Meadow were incorrect and cases like that happen much more frequently than suggested by the figure (1 in 73mil).
Such is life my friend. Sometimes the whole world is against you even though you haven't done anything. Just remember that when you are judging other people in the future. Never think that there is no way you are wrong.
@@mrlantan3318 I remember reading about this, but I think the reason it was overturned was because as medical science advanced, they found some genetic reason for the deaths.
yeah it's super messed up...
I remember my algebra teacher telling us about this, saying that statistics show people with bigger feet are better at math. None of us could have guessed that the statistic studied all ages, so it included babies and toddlers.
Damn, that's smart
Men usually are taller than women so they have bigger feet, does that mean men are better at math them women
@@lotuswolf1518 I mean statistically, guys are better at math, so I mean ig it does.
@@trevor987 women are more calculative though
That's why in my AP stats class my teacher made it a huge deal to put the context, the group we where studying, any stratification, the way we got the data, any sort of bias that could came up, and error we couldn't account for. Stats are so easily capable to be miscommunicated even if you meant well. Someone could take a number you put out there in good intention and use it to push an agenda while ignoring key aspects of the stat. A stat isn't just the probability, it's the context and situation it was taken with.
My father once told me "Figures don't lie but liars can figure." Good video. Thank you!
go figure
I’ve seen your comments on other videos lol, they must have been good comments for me to remember
IM liker 200
Ooo. Yo daddy smart.
my father once told me the world was gonna roll me
Statistics have shown that if you start a sentence with "Statistics have shown" people are more likely to believe you.
Lol
73.6% of all statistics are made up
@@ITR but other statistics have shown that that is, in fact, false
Fuck. You : )
I literally believed you quite a lot before finishing the sentence. Afterwards I realized that you started the sentence with "Statistics have shown" which made me realize that it already fooled me.... good one
Lessons:
1. In graphs, always include 0
2. When giving percentage changes, always provide both percent increase (if it doubled, its a 100% increase) and percentage point increase together (if it went from 1% to 2%, it increased by 1 pp)
Including 0 isn't actually the pertinent part. What's important is having a consistent scale that includes 0.
You can have a graph that includes 0 but also has a break in its axis. Like if you have a graph with data in a field that goes from 0 to 100 but all of the data is grouped in the 80s, you could have the axis of the graph go: 0, 10 ... 70 80 90 100. This includes 0 but still suffers the same deceptive look as if it didn't.
I think a big one is --> BE CAREFUL OF DRAWING CONCLUSIONS WITHOUT THINKING
@@Strawberryfreak Well yes but that's kinda besides the point. It's easy to just tell people to think more, but the thing is people might not know _what_ or _how to think._ There's a difference between telling people to just be critical and teaching people to think critically. That's where knowledge comes in. Knowing there's a significant difference between percentage increase and percentage point increase is something to be learned. Or knowing how much it matters how the data was derived and out of which group the percentage is drawn from. It's never just "think about it first", it's also realizing what there is to think about, what do we mean by the fact points given. Out of those specified definitions and the context, a "fact" means nothing at all. Not everybody, without being taught to, realizes this matters. It's one thing to be sceptical about a statistics in a title of a news article. It's a whole another thing to know that news headlines aren't statistics, that just because something was said, the reality of the matter is only revealed once you know the details. People also easily assume a moral value for pieces of trivial information. Just saying the rate of dropping out of studies has increased, for example, doesn't mean we're saying it's a bad thing. We aren't saying anything at all about whether it's good or bad with that piece of knowledge unless we specify why and justify such moral evaluation separately. This is also one of those things a lot of people don't necessarily know or realize to question. Categorical scepticism isn't necessarily smart either, and this idea of never trusting what we're being told instead of practicing curiosity and aiming to _know_ more is what has contributed to mistrust in media and authorities of information. It goes from "think first" to "don't trust at face value" to "don't trust media" to "we're being lied to and new information should be categorically rejected because authorities of information are by nature untrustworthy". No, the point isn't to be sceptical, it's to understand what it means to say certain things and why it matters how things are spoken about. Being sceptical for the sake of it paradoxically doesn't make people any less susceptible for being manipulated, in fact less so.
@@R3_dacted0that’s not really how graphs work. It would be too obvious if someone broke the axis up like that
"If 4 out of 5 people suffer from radiation poisoning, does that mean that the 5th guy enjoys it?"
-Codsworth, Fallout 4
Good one
Savage
I mean obviously, radiation positing feels fucking amazing and idk why more people don't like it
I love how the fifth comment talks about enjoying radiation poisoning
That didn’t go how i thought it would, but i appreciate the reminder of that games timeless humor
Scariest thing about statistics is that the data doesn't have to be faked in order to tell whatever story you want to tell.
THAT WRONG
you simple do not know statistics
if i put half of your body in the freezer, and but half of you in the oven , and we make statistical analysis of your body temp
we will get your body is in IDEAL temperature
of course we know that you will die in this scenario
does statistic lie??
NO
the problem is YOU and you do not release what the number represents
it not a problem of statisitc mate
its a problem that people have not idea what the number represent
@@sonaruo That is rather harsh as OP did not say that statistics lie. He, in fact, stated that any story you want can be weaved by using the same data. You just decided to take the moral high ground when OP's claim was completely valid. I think everyone understands that statistics by itself is not the evil here. It is willful or unwitting use of incorrect or partial statistics that can potentially cause lot of harm.
@@AnkhArcRod
sorry mate but the wording is plain wrong
"whatever story you want to tell"
no mate you cna nto use the math to say that blanc is white and white is black you simpel can not.
but if the people do not know the numbers and the precise wording then people will assume something different because they consider the number represent something that it is not
thats not a fault of statistic or that statistic said that to begin with
example is the 100% and the 5% raise the wording is not the exact same its tiny different
so you know how to use that number they give you since they are 2 different things
the 100% is the rate of measurement while the 5% is the net increment.
when you are given that the wording is slight different so you can say what it is and use them properly.
now if the for the people the rate of changing something and the actual speed is the sam eis ther problem
my math professor said this word of wisdom
you think you do nto need math, what you teach today you will never use, but these numbers will be used in your every day life and because you will be unabme to understand what they represent they will maniip[ulate to do what ever they want.
because he have books written , we teach something to people it does not mean that all people will understand it and comprehend it
geee if that was truw 100% of the population will be scientist with doctor level and we will be going in another galaxy to settle down by now.
and statistic is easy and real straight forward to do it
if you want real massacre go is probabilities
the majority of the problems are counter intuitive and many times to sovle them and be sure that its the correct one
we end up brute force the problem
@@sonaruo And despite that, OP has over 9000% more likes than yours. Where does that put you?
@@sonaruo The OP of this thread basically said the same thing this video said. It is EASY to use statiscs to form a story that you want to happen, or you can use data to grant the impression you want by with holding context. Yes if you do not understand the data your more likely to belief it but if I said out of 1000 people who applied to a job with 400 openings 0% percent of women who applied where accepted. Its very easy to understand no women where given a job. This is the sort of situation that was talked about its miss leading and with holding info. If I told you 1000 people applied to become a male stripper and 1 women applied who did not get the job is very different intent of presentation to 100% of the women who applied did not get the job.
I hate % with a passion its easy to mislead as a 100% increase is alarming but you can also say there was a 5% increase for the same data. I mean you can even use that term a 100% increase if the sample size simply decrease. It depends if you look at all the data or just the increase. Look at house prices in NZ and you will see a misrepresentation of what they are increasing by as its better to use the 5% but if you want to create a panic or a rush to do something use the 100%.
It’s like saying “ it’s easier to get into Harvard than a job at Walmart”
- Walmart acceptance rate - 2.6%
- Harvard acceptance rate - 5.2%
Walmart has a 2.6% job acceptance rate??
@@Claricio imagine like 1000 people a year applying for Walmart bc everyone can apply but Walmart only needs 3 workers
@caprice.t Yeah that's right, gotta look at the size of the sample, not only the proportion of the sample that's accepted into a job or a programme
@caprice.t One thing though. Its not easier, its just more likely. For the average person It would be easier to get tô work for Walmart, but since only people with a decent level of instruction apply to Harvard, its more likely that these people would succeed, but for a regular person It would be almost Impossible
I doubt Walmalt has a 2.6% acceptance rate, but it's not hard to imagine that out of all the Walmarts in the world, one of them somewhere has a 2.6% acceptance rate due to an overabundance of unskilled workers applying.
The dog/animal with 4 legs explanation is amazing. It captures the essence of the fallacy so well and packs it into a tangible example.
Since there are some people with less then 2 arms, the world average number of arms is somewhere below 2. Meaning if you have 2 arms you have an above average number of arms. Good for you!
You should see how the extra arm improves onanism.
Imagine if there is some human born with like 20 arms, we would all have less arms than the average human
@@martimsalvador9186 well, assuming there's more than 18 people with 1 arm less than 2 (not even counting those without any arms) then the 1 person with 18 arms more than 2 wouldn't bring up the average enough to make average≥2
@@allanknox8216 wayyyy rarer than a missing arm
Since there are alive people, the world average of deaths per person is around 80%
Within my statistics class in college we actually had to identify misleading charts and graphs and explain how they were designed to mislead. I saw graphs that were upside down, with offset scales, and even the use of specific colors to elicit a response.
That's pretty low level manipulating that literally a 7th grader could tell was fishy.
@@rivershen8199 Whats crazy though, is that it still works even on people who know that.
So...AI have been removing my comment several times now because of certain words. So for this comment to make any sense, I need to clarify what I mean by certain words:
LowVibb19 = that thing that is spreading around the world that people are shit scared of even though it has a 99% survival rate.
Max = That thing that they want you to take into your bloodstream so that a certain industry can earn billiions of dollars even though it doesn't even work as intended.
Now here's my comment:
Here's another one for ya: You can also cheat with the statistics with how you define something. For example: They don't define a person as being fully Max'ed until two weeks after they've had the 2nd LowVibb19 Max. So anyone who gets seriously injured or die right after the first Max or within the first two weeks after the 2nd Max, will be defined as "un Max iated" in the statistics. So all the hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of people world wide who have been seriously injured or died from the LowVibb19 Max will not be counted in the statistics. Clever, huh? I personally know several people this has happened to.
@@DolphinsPlayingInAquaMoonlight This isn't statistics, it's a bait
@@DolphinsPlayingInAquaMoonlight Thats the dumbest shit i have heard in a while tbh
How many people have died on Earth? Everyone ever.
How many people have died on the Sun? Noone.
Conclusion: The sun is safer than the Earth.
Is there a fallacy for this?
Sorry, your first statement is OBVIOUSLY WRONG. If EVERYONE EVER has died on Earth -- who posted the video? Who's replying to you? Who, in fact, posted your comment?
@S J Yes, but what you WROTE was the EVERYONE that has EVER been on Earth, including those on it now, have died.
@@jdinhuntsvilleal4514 Well, he's right, he just posted in advance.
but some deaths have occurred in outer space
My Grandpa used to say, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”
So much truth in that. I’ve always kept that in the back of my head when I see statistics….especially statistics that push a narrative.
Cool
Is that narrative that contextualizes all
Food and water are overrated: you can live without them for the rest of your life
Night mare You right lol
You can also live the entire rest of your life without breathing.
-Vsauce
if u give a man fire he'll be warm for a night
but if u set a man on fire he'll be warm for the rest of his life
the people who passed by without liking this comment, should consider re-watching the video so that more brain cells can grow.
You can extend your life by consuming food and water.
Fallacy: Eternal life
This should be the introduction of every statistics class
Youll be happy to know then that these examples are famous in the statistics world and actually *were* in the first few lessons of my probability theory course :)
@@MrWatermanx2 same, we didn't have the exact same examples, but the message was the same
stories are super common in marketing college classes... kinda old news actually. I went to college almost two decades ago.
Yes, it's how statistics can give you the power to lie, and how to use them to push your own agenda. Maybe they should teach this in highschool honestly.
It is, these are cliche examples that I heard in class years ago.
My Statistics teacher told me "Statistics is like a Bikini, what it reveals is interesting, what it hides is crucial."
This is enlightening and makes me horny. The perfect comment.
Arnold What the fuck
I'm so going to use that one.
Lies, damn lies and statistics....Mark Twain!
@@100percentSNAFU same lol, i have a really important data visualization project coming up....
I ran into this recently with my job as an auditor. We evaluated the reasonableness of a company’s marketing expense by comparing it to revenue. The idea was that if their revenue went up, it was due to increased marketing expenses (I know there can be other factors too). Anyways, most months their expense hovered around 2% of revenue. One month it was 3.5%. My staff told me “that’s less than a 2% increase; it’s very trivial”. I said “that’s a 60% increase- it’s worth looking into”.
Yeah it’s interesting how people think about percentages
I spend the same on marketing each month and only make adjustments periodically. If sales are up one month it might be 5% of sales spent on marketing. If sales drop for a month it might be 8% spent. But I didn’t change what I spent.
You can't just leave us with a cliffhanger, then what happened?
@@fivebooks8498 Since your marketing budget is fixed, if sales are up next month then your marketing expensive percentage (MEP) would be lower than 5%, if sales are down compared to starting month only then your MEP would go higher than 5%.
@@AA-pv1fy For a story this thrilling, you'll have to wait until I publish my memoirs
I read one on which countries had the largest increase in murder rates. New Zealand had an increase of 300 percent , however if you looked at the actual numbers they went from one murder in a year to 3 . I think I would be willing to take my chances
That's per 100k population. To put it in perspective, for that equivalent year, that's a 52% chance of being killed compared to living in USA. However, two years prior, there was only a 13% chance relative to USA, with a roughly 1/5 chance over the past 10 years. The reason I point out USA is all the gun-related deaths vs. NZ which has much stricter firearms laws.
However you look at 2.6 vs 5.1 (rounded) / 100k being high or low, it's interesting how many people say NZ is so safe and USA is dangerous -- future years will determine if NZ retraces lower.
Going from 1 to 3 is 200% increase, not 300%
@@nccamsc Lol again shows how unintuitive statistics can be
That's why you measured it per capita....
@@junkbond4882 According to wikipedia New Zealand had 126 cases of intentional homicide in 2019, a rate of 2.6/100k. During the Christchurch mosque shooting that year 51 people were killed, i.e. nearly half of all intentional homicide victims in 2019 thereby close to doubling the rate per 100k.
The 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas killed 61 people. With total intentional homicide victims north of 20000 that year this event didn't have any impact on the rate per 100k for the US.
Context is key...
I remember that I had a math exam where one of the tasks was to manipulate a diagramm to make one computer company look better than the other.
that is a really cool question, as it really drills home how unreliable statistics are, if you yourself can abuse it.
There's a cool example of this in the Simpsons Paradox, which can be used to fudge results for drug trials to the untrained eye.
@@yeckiLP in Germany we say "vertraue nie einer Statistik die du nicht selbst gefälscht hast", basically "never trust statistics you yourself didn't manipulate"
@bruh That was like 5 years ago, all I've written everything I remember about it in the original comment
I had the same thing in a math course and an econ course using baseline and scale abuse
Fun fact: People who can swim are more likely to drown than people who can´t.
this is a good one
@@aarontheperson6867 not really
@@kobakun584 ok
AaronThePerson it’s alright, he’s probably just one of the swimmers who drowned
@@kobakun584 people who swim spend more time in water, leading to more people drowning. Not learning to swim makes you more likely to drown if thrown in water, but less likely to drown in your life.
I feel enlightened. I'm not stupid by any means, but I obviously lacked basically all sense of statistics. It's unfortunate I wasn't ever introduced to the subject throughout my schooling. I feel like this video will make me think so much more than I have been. And... knowledge is power. Thanks, so much.
You seem so nice. I'd like to chat :)
I feel like statistics should be a required class, over something like trigonometry. You’re not using that in life unless you’re in a math heavy field, but statistics are everywhere
@@mikaelvirji5807Thankfully, where I’m from, it was covered in maths
"I feel enlightened" is what I think after watching any Zack Star video
Is statistics not a compulsory topic in mathematics there? Where do you live? In ours it was compulsory from I don't even remember when but I think it was middle school before we ever learned about trigs
"the woman lost her children due to natural causes, was accused of murdering them, was sent to jail for 3 years, received a lot of public backlash, and died of alcohol poisoning 4 years later" jesus christ, that is just terrible
That is why a jury shouldn't make a decision based off of circumstancial evidence alone. No one should be found guilty unless forensics show that they are guilty.
@@Gamerboy365ify The jury was fucking retarded, by doing the statistic, they disproved the child dying from SIDS, not proving the mother killed it. I just dont get it...
It's called British Justice
@@we-are-electric1445 It's not as bad as yank justice.
@@Takkion Last time i checked, Casey Anthony was tried in Florida.
Dad "my daughter is pregnant and she's due in August"
Target "we know".
what
@@Kamoojaan watch the video
That would be terrifying to hear.
@@Kamoojaan stupid
Maybe she was boinking Targets statistician
"1 in 20 people is the victim of a crime."
"Which means 19 in 20 people are criminals."
- random british show
red dwarf may be random but it sure as hell isn't a random show
@@bickieditch9168 It was actually Diane Morgan idk what the show was probably in the description to this: ruclips.net/video/QgCEbfRbK-0/видео.html
only in overly simplistic binary worlds
If you look in a dark ally, maybe
@@bickieditch9168 Red Dwarf? I thought it was BBC News they were talking about.
10:55 I love how "Losing in Fortnite" is described as a third factor.
Statistics is the art of never having to say you’re wrong.
Statistics: 95% chance of winning, you should take this bet.
*Takes the bet and lost
Statistics: I said a 95% chance of winning not that you will win, I can't help the fact that you're a loser.
100% statisticians made at least one correct statement about statistics, which many non-statisticians never have. Therefore, statisticians are more trustworthy. Which means you really should trust a statistician you just met more than you should trust a non-statistician you have known for your whole life.
@@Kasiarzynka Many is a tricky word in statistics. A responsible statistician will not use this word in this context as "many" can be interpreted as any number greater than 100. Since a non-responsive statistician has a higher rate of using misleading statistics, I will not trust you here.
13 100 50 100
It's the "science" that knows every other science better than the scientists in those areas without knowing anything about the science or so some of my former bosses think.
BREAKING NEWS!
Teenage pregancy rates drop by 100%!!!! after the age of 19!
19! years is longer than a human lifespan
The rates only halve?
Lol
Magic Gonads
Here‘s the thing:
100% of X is X.
So if X increases by 100% (of X), it increases by X, so there‘s an additional X is added to the original X, which means that it was doubled.
If X decreases by 100%, it decreases by X, so there‘s X subtracted from the original X, which means that it went to zero.
Clearer now?
The comments in this one are hilarious because people are arguing statistics for 20 year olds who are no longer teenagers.
I love how he put "Losing in Fortnite" as a cause for bad grades and smoking.
Its legit. Losing makes you upset lol
@@khanhsp imagine starting smoking because you're upset lol
Imagine playing FORTNITE in 2020
@@hissingfaunaa oh yes, I never play games because I like them, just because they're popular /s
imagine not letting people enjoy Fortnite just because it's 2020
THIS is why studying math is so important! Makes me want to sign up for a statistics course...
dew it
Math is wonderful. Few things are more beautiful in life than math, pretty much nothing
@@lucazani2730let things better than math be epsilon>0....
“It makes life 200% easier”
It's been 11 months, how's statistics going?
I had an Electrical Engineering professor who said that “graphs with suppressed zeros should be made illegal.”
You have shown why professor Crosno was correct,👍
my temptation is to say “absolutely yes” but i think we might be better off trying to explain this phenomenon to as many people as possible because the people who are committed to lying might find a way around it if we make it illegal lol
Man I teach Excel. And for some reason Excel automatically sets other number different than zero in bar charts. The user has to perform some extra steps just to make the bar chart look like a real comparison.
I think it was just cause he was too old to deal with that crap
It depends SOOO much on context, though. If you were showing a graph of a person’s body temperature with vs without medication, starting the graph at 0 would make no sense because you would barely be able to tell a difference of 4 degrees, even though that can mean the difference between a mild fever and someone needing hospitalization.
@@spost1986 excellent point. 👍👍
I took a statistics class in college. The textbook was literally called How To Lie With Statistics.
Liars can figure, and figures can lie. 😷🤧🙃😁
Fun fact - the author of that book "Darrell Huff" was actually a tobacco industry lobbyist and that book was a part of that propaganda. You can check it here: statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2012/04/27/how-to-mislead-with-how-to-lie-with-statistics/
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 Was that the inspiration for the movie "Thank You For Smoking" or are the two unrelated?
@@CynicalOldDwarf I haven't seen the movie. But sounds like it's a goon one. I'll look into it and let u know.
Bill gates has that same book.
I was sooo confused when he started saying people who had head lights were healthier... Then I saw the word "head lice" appear on my screen and felt really stupid.
However people who own cars (thus have headlights) are probably wealthier than those who can't afford cars and wealthier people can then also afford medicine etc.
But was that really causation or just correlation?
I thought the same thing but it was the people being lit by the headlights who were healthier.
SAME
Illianor123 you must not travel much. Most people don't own cars and managed to hit 80+ fairly easily. There's literally no correlation between being owning a car and the potential state of health of a person.
If only my statistics professor taught like this, maybe I would have understood more. He always said something about "Only work with the data you are given", which works for school, but is obviously flawed in the real world (like in all of these examples)
So what did I learn from this video?
Losing in fortnite causes smoking and bad grades.
who even told you to play fortnite? just go for minecraft!
Fortnite Just freaking copies people they just freaking copied yandere simulator
@@kuljitminhas8707 in what exactly? i'm curious to know cuz i haven't played it ( and i'll never do)
Well ... at least now I know why I smoke and have bad grades ...
kuljit minhas lmao
100 percent of all air breathers die
conclution: dont breath
sounds like a plan
100 percent of all non-air-breathers also die.
@@ivystarlight17 conclusion: breathe
@@ivystarlight17 this is because 100% of people who have drank water die.
Conclusion: don't breathe or drink water
1 out of every 10 individuals can't spell
Conclusion: You should learn to spell conclusion and not conclution
PS. Its a joke don't get angry!
I thought the study was Colgate employees asking some dentists "do you recommend Colgate?"
And 80% of them saying "yes" and the rest saying "no."
*slides money to the dentist* you sure?
It's worse than that because they have to manufacture "80% recommend colgate" because nobody will believe "100% recommend colgate"
in the States they say "4 out of 5" which is probably a little clearer...and probably required by law
@@garygarypov5060 in brazil they say 9 out of 10 lol i guess it depends on the country (how they go about it)
@@hannalowercase5928 same for the uk, its 9 out of 10, my data suggests that 195% of countries follow that format
Keeping this in mind is very important, especially in the world of media. You've shown how differences in presentation can twist public perception of an event. Now add the arbitrary choice of which piece of information is covered, the wording as well as many other factors and you can be manipulated, on purpose or not, and end up believing something completely untrue without anyone having lied.
I thought you said headlights instead of head lice, really got me concerned how people could think it was healthy
Same
#metoo
same here!
Using your headlights is unhealthy. Statistically speaking, people who use their headlights at night are more likely to die from disease or illness than people who drive at night without headlights.
Yeahh
The whole thing reminds me of a quote a friend whose into this sort of thing told me once. "Nobody who wants you to think a certain way ever tells you the whole story"
Context is everything.
To be fair though, it would take too long to tell the whole story of most things, and you're assuming the person you're speaking to is educated and aware enough of both sides already
@@Christoff070 The real trick isn't to lie to people. The real trick is to get people so emotionally invested in what you're saying that they'll believe in it even when faced with conflicting evidence that is true OR false. You can pretty easily get people wound up into what you're selling without lying, too. You just need a couple half-truths and a superficial comparison or two.
@@ScrambledAndBenedict the political grifters of the world know this well
Your remark indicates to me that "Nobody" wants me to thing a certain way
I have a degree in statistics. You did a very good job explaining these nuisances and yet this is still only scratching the surface of how wonky and manipulative statistical techniques can be.
It is a really good start though. I can't seem to reach anyone that doesn't already mildly understand how a statistic is even brought into fruition, nevermind the why. This introduction on the topic will likely save me at least an hour of my next conversation when pointing out the way media covers current events. Such as the scamdemic and inflation, or our country's spending vs GDP. These media outlets utilize these same techniques to sway people into voting for Representatives that are going to push legislation that, at the core, doesn't make any sense.
I don't have your credentials, but I do have 6 undergraduate and 6 graduate credits in statistics. I agree with you that David did a good job but there are so many other ways people lie with statistics. One of the big ones is when a single study comes out to prove a point and it's taken as gospel. Most people aren't aware of the need for an independently replicated study that produces the same results, they just assume the solo study is valid.
@@danielreshenterprises6174 well said. I agree 100% with the notion that one study without peer review is opinion, not science. The great thing about science is that findings are open to be replicated and if there are different results, we can all learn why. The best question and, in my opinion, the beginning and demise of our mortal selves, starts and ends, with the question, "WHY?".
@M M that is a very good point. This is where intellectualism and understanding of where the "peer review"originated from, comes into play. I preached to my son constantly, who recently turned 18 years of age, that the device that is in his pocket has unlimited knowledge. Back in my day we had to consult the encyclopedia Britannica. It is much easier today to learn about something, anything, that we don't already know.
@@RdeneckTech DING!
I used to teach this material in one of my college classes. Glad to see people are still recognizing how important this early form of "targeted marketing" was to the future of internet ads.
7:00 "Dropout rates double, from 5% to 10%" is how I'd frame this data.
Yeah but logic doesn't get ad revenue
@@toby7161 based
...If media was honest.... FACEPALM CITY this is why I DON"T use FB....and other sites....yeah I know YT is not Immune to this tactic . . .....
Fun Fact '100% of People that commented on this video watch RUclips at some point' lol
But politicians, and their advisors, can't use that information to improve their election, or re-election for that matter, chances
Downside is people may stop paying attention after "double"
The Sally Clark case is so sad. Imagine losing both of your infant children because of something you cant control- and then getting sent to prison and demonized for what happened to you.
I really hope that Sally and all of her immediate family members genetics were taken into account because rare genetic disorders can be very prevalent and over represented in a family with a faulty genetics
This video will probably definitely help you irl
I just don’t understand how a doctor couldn’t see how those two events could be reasonably dependent, not independent. I have little medical education, but even I could assume immediately that someone who gave birth to a dead child once may reasonably have some type of health condition that could lead to a second problematic childbirth.
@@dathunderman4 well the prosecution was operating under the assumption of guilt: they found a doc who would say what they wanted and didn't waste time trying to see if it actually held up scrutiny
The case of Sally Clark sounds very similar to a now proven link of genetic defect causing death in very young. 60 Minutes Australia aired a similar incident of a woman, jailed so far, for 18yrs, her surname Folbigg, last night 29Aug2021. She lost 4 young children. She has lost her latest appeal based on the statistics rather than the new scientific study.
I liked this video a lot so I'm just commenting to make sure the youtube algorithm shows it more love.
Jayne I can’t escape the best ow coach in the world, even when I don’t watch his RUclips
Me too
did you like this comment?
me too
Becouse that's what heroes do
The really sad thing is not just how easy it is to deceive other people using statistics, it's also how easy people unintentionally deceive themselves using statistics.
did you know: since there are women pregnant at any given time the average number of skeletons inside a human body is slightly higher than 1
Most people also have an above average number of limbs.
@@SuperSox97 Unless we also count the limbs inside pregnant women, in which case I'd need actual numbers before committing myself to an answer.
@@EvenTheDogAgrees you are forgetting that if anyone is missing limbs it brings the average under 4(2 arms, 2 legs) which means that anyone who has 2 arms and 2 legs than they have an above average number of limbs.
@@retrorocket9951 Like I said: _unless_ we count the limbs _inside_ pregnant women.
@@EvenTheDogAgrees ah sorry i thought you were saying that wouldn't be true unless we counted pregnant people. My mistake.
Holy shit. I don't know how RUclips's algorithm actually found me a small-ish channel worth watching, but for once it did something right. Very entertaining and informative. Keep it up.
@@randomxnp Very true. I just wish RUclips was able to find me more content like this because finding diamonds in the rough is a very rare occasion for me.
Every now and them despite their best effort RUclips does recommend a video you are interested in and like. Just be careful on your search. S&L scandal gives some interesting sexual practices (BDSM). Makes you wonder about the people running the place
because you had been visiting small channel. The amount of data also matter
@@randomxnp It only goes 6 months or so back.
Statistics, that's how. Only Google knows the details, but this type of recommendation algorithm is pretty much ALL statistics (with a lot of clever matrix mathematics to figure it out quickly).
Person A: "hmmm lotion and vitamins she might be pregnant "
Person B: "Yeah, that and the pregnancy test that was purchased."
Theres a lot of people who purchase pregnancy tests that end up not being pregnant. Prenatal vitamins might actually correlate better since people who are trying to get pregnant or know they are pregnant purchase them.
Zachary Walter it was a joke lol
@@officergreg1318 Yeah, for sure. It still missed the point that was made in the video though. The guy was talking about women that already knew they were pregnant and how shopping patterns might reveal who they are. Women that already know they're pregnant don't buy pregnancy tests. Still, I like the joke.
Or that they stop buying proud products
@@Alchatraaz938 Good to know
Thank you for this. I see statistical illiteracy and misrepresentation way too often
This brings a whole new meaning to the name “Target”
lol
\m/ !!!
omL!!!!! I will never see Target the same way again, after this comment.
I might even stop shopping there.😭
Pin this comment! That’s clever!
@@someguy007 What the big tech companies do with your data nowadays makes Target look cute and slow.
It’s almost like the context of data is removed on purpose to generate a narrative that looks better for a particular group. It’s a weird world where people both don’t believe in numbers but vow by numbers when it’s convenient.
Most if it boils down to the fact that most people are not mathematicians, but also don't want to seem dumb by admitting they didn't learn enough about mathematics to understand what the numbers actually mean. if people would worry less about what they seem to be and start to worry more about what they actually are, this might chance, I doubt it will be any time soon.
*change
One of the troubles there though is the hired gun. In the video example the prosecution was able to hire a mathematical gunslinger to argue their case for them. Either he was incompetent or dishonest in doing so. The defense was apparently unable to find a gunslinger of their own to explain the problems with the prosecution's argument. Not everybody's lawyer happens to date an expert.
Whatever else I did with my degree in math, I was resolved that I did not want to be a gunslinger for some corporation (or think tank with an agenda). Yet doubtless I might have made a better living as a gunslinger and be highly regarded in society. I might even be able to tell myself that I was shooting on the side of justice.
@@BlacksmithTWD This is part of the problem definitely.
At the same time, there is also a large element of confirmation bias as OC says. If it supports our narrative or fits our worldview, it's extremely credible and transparent. If not, we find 1,000 things to criticize about it.
yea almost
I got a colgate ad in the middle of this 😂
.
100% of ads recommend Colgate!
Was there ads in the middle of the video?
brush your teeth my nigga,
google home can smell your breath foo.
also there is an pluggin could y0tub3 @d8l0ck3r spell this 1ee7 phrase in your browesers plugin market place search box and and install it your browser
This is actually a very touching and interesting video. Dropping off a comment to let you know that your video made its way to my graduate school class discussion. Cheers!
Three statisticians went duck hunting. When a duck flew overhead the first one shot and missed 3 feet to the left, the second one shot and missed 3 feet to the right, and the third statistician yelled "We got him!"
Then how did the 2nd one miss?
Because the average of the two shots was zero feet, or right on the target
@@猫猫咪咪-g3n I can't believe you had to explain that. Lol
People should understand the difference between "percent" and "percentage point".
5 in 100 increasing to 10 in 100 is a 100 percent increase, and also an increase of 5 percentage points.
I liked because I found your comment helpful. I was trying to remember how to say it. But I disagree with the notion that since people should know the difference, that gives us free rein to use percent changes without also specifying what the percentage point change is. Just because some people are ignorant doesn't mean it's right to take advantage of it.
i didn't know the name for it until i passed by this comment , so thanks for reminding me =)
this is so important, I was looking for someone pointing it out
@@ex0stasis72 go tell that to all the marketing departments that use this garbage to increase sales and make money for their company. I'm sure they'll be willing to stop because you feel it's unfair to all the idiots out there
Volume speaks volumes.......
"High school dropouts have *doubled* from 5% to 10% this year, bringing the total to 2."
60% of the time, it works everytime.
anchorman?
There are 20 people in your high school?
"the doctor say he's got a 50-50 chance of living, though there's only a 10% chance of that"
@@Ignirium I've heard that before, what show is that from?
A 10% chance of a 50/50 chance would make it a 5% chance, right?
@@zchettaz Naked Gun 33 1/3! the Original joke before Anchorman made theirs - i reckon they knew about it.
"Politicians use statistics the same way a Drunk uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination" -some guy I forgot
New study shows that on average, every human has one fallopian tube
@Samuel Isaac just thats how statistics can work, thats why they can be interpreted pretty easily to proof whatever you want to proof; and for such statements its irrelevant if its an outlier or anything and it is still correct; like you said "shouldn't" be counted, but that does not mean, that he won't be counted
@@minutenreis r/whoooosh buddy
@@mollytaylor8122 r/itswooooshwith4osand1h
On average people have less than 2 legs.
Burnham quote?
I majored in Medical Administration at TN Tech. We had a required class that included manipulating statistics. That concerned me deeply.
How was that class directly linked to medical administration?
@@giseii oh boy! how? question should be, how isnt
I think this should mean jail for anyone who encouraged this on pregrads
Anything to back this claim? Honestly this statement sounds just as misleading as a lot of the example statistics in the video.
@@Jp-ue8xz or it could be that they were showing students how easy it was too manipulate numbers so they're more mindful of how the way they right things down effects people
My university prof. always said: Don´t believe statistics you didn´t fake yourself! xD
what a lad
@@mfbandit7930 That's a quote from Winston Churchill
@@Gyallarhorn1 Read the Note at the end of this(see url). At this time, neither of us has shown a source document. edouard.decastro.name/notes/1028
That's a ted talk that was recommended to me weeks on youtube... never watched it anyway, maybe it was your prof though haha
@@allabouthh Interesting.
The point of why I said this was just to say that his prof probably didn't come up with this line on his own. But knowing that a lot of people are quoting Goebbels is even more funny.
Not only are you the master of 90’s cable quality RUclips comedy gold, but you’re like the cool math teacher in the 90s that actually gets me to be enthused in stat.
*Fine,* I'll take that optional stats course
😂😂😂
doesn't mean it will suit you...
Same 🙈
I don't know why schools push calculus much harder than stat, when stat is actually useful in life for most while calculus isn't. Maybe because calculus is more fancy?
Hell, statistic isn't even required for all math majors, whereas courses like analysis on manifold is. The number of people who might find the latter useful probably won't amount to four figures in the country. And if you subtract teachers, barely three figures. It's right "up there" with art history.
@@justanoman6497 Because you need calculus to understand statistics.
How did you find out your daughter was pregnant?
Dad: Target told me
MrBeast: BUYING ALL OF TARGET'S LOTION IN 100 LOCATIONS
Statistician : WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Alexi what?
@@lukedavies2406 Did you like youir own comment
@@lukedavies2406 Maybe you don't know, but mrBeast is a popular rich youtuber who buys a lot of random stuff and gives money away like crazy
it's called an outlier. . .
@@bk-sl8ee You replied to the wrong person, but good one xD
A cool thing that my language (polish) has (and uses) that english really doesnt(that i know of) is having an established difference between "percentages" and "percantage points". You use the first one like multiplication so 5 percent + 50 percent[of 5] is 7.5% and the second one as adding 5 percent + 50 percentage points = 55%. This basically means that as long as you read the text accurately you wont be misled
For court cases. Statistics should only be used as supplementary evidence to actual hard evidence. It's terrifying to hear or believe that entire cases were set guilty purely on statistics.
Hard agree.
If there is any hard evidence proving guilt/innocence in the first place, then why bother with statistics ?
@@Eclypso02 proving guilt has to be 99% beyond any reasonable doubt. Sometimes statistics can push it over the boundary. It's all about convincing the jury.
@@Eclypso02 Because you don't know what the defense will say regarding the proof. Statistics can make the defense tougher, but I don't think anyone should use statistics as the only argument of guilt.
Or "science", the next most misleading source of information. Science is always changing and updating, and when people get the idea in their heads that "science" is a hard-core, reliable vault of absolute certainty, they turn it into tyrannical dictators.
Seriously, the whole world needs to see this. Quote my professor shared with us “Never trust a statistic you haven’t faked yourself!”
Basically in order to not get mislead by bad stats you need to yourself have some basic understanding and demand in depth explanations of the calculations
The vast majority of Drugs smuggled across the border come through ports of entery.well statistics are what's caught witch come through ports y
you should see my country's statistics they do this in EVERYTHING EVEEEERYTHIIIING
*"50% of people in the lowest quintile cannot afford food!"*
This was a post that sparked lots of idiocy on Facebook. I had to break down the tax quintiles by irs.org then show that indeed if you make half of 12k a year you cannot afford to eat. And to make that at $7/hour you had to work less than 1000 hours which is less than 20 hours per week at a rate below federal minimum...it took days to get my point across that this doesn't represent any able bodied adult that is TRYING to work. *2 days a week can't pay all your bills* would have been a stupid headline though.
During a staff meeting, one of my managers complained that the number of performance appraisals she was expected to write had doubled over the prior year. The other managers looked shocked until I agreed with her and said "Yes, it has doubled. Now you do two instead of one". We all had a good laugh.
Lol,hope you didn't get fired for that.
I hope it was because she got a second employee and not because she has to do two appraisals instead of one for each employee.
@@jcsjcs2 It was a second employee under her supervision.
One of statistic's better uses is in the leadership preformance algorithm that includes the skill "sets" as productivity multipliers... 😁
The whole time I was thinking how the first few court examples given must be wrong... happy you were able to share the correct interpretations later
The average person has less than two hands.
Isn't "the average person" similar to "a randomly selected person"? Would a way to create the same effect be "the average number of a person's hands is less than two" or do you have something better?
@@JonathanLyons7 "a randomly selected person " is the most common value, also known as Mode. The average is just compiling and comparing, most people have 2 hands, then you have a small amount of people that have 1 hand so the result would be something like 1.993 (I'm making up the number and also taking the possiblity of having more hands rather than less out of the equation as I assume that is at least less common). Which technically is less than 2.
@@JonathanLyons7 so if out of 20 students, everyone gets a 50/100 then the one person gets a 0, the average would be 47.5, technically less than 50. The example given by the previous user highlights an extreme case of this
The median number of hands is 2.
The average person has an above average number of hands
Birthdays are healthy: the more you have of them, the older you will get
Birthdays are unhealthy. The more you have the closer you are to dying.
Agent J yes, lets measure the worth of a life by counting the number of birthdays celebrated.
and what feelesh meant was that the same data looks very different if viewed thru a different lens
@Agent J you can't remember if you're dead (The dark humor has gotten to me)
@@abhaysreeram978 Spot on. Agent J has to post garbage on here because the schools are closed.
Neither are you, after the heat death of the universe all life will cease to exist
"Figures don't lie, but liars figure"
- Mark Twain
@@aligator7181 ?
@@aligator7181 You can divide the fraction itself. If you don't convert it into decimal you should be fine. Do you know a way that 1/3 could actually be divided exactly using numbers and symbols that represent actual mathematics vs those that simply show that it divides in a certain way. (sorry if the way I phrased this is wonky. It's 2am here.)
@El Caranaoi
Aren't Mark Twain's quotes just the best?
@@aligator7181 your logic is like a flatearthbeliver's XD
Amusing bytheway, no bad meaning. I really enjoyed to read your words.
If u cut something into half and isn't a very same any kind of amount after, u was not cut it half. Simple like that. The problem is that u major to human imperfection. Should not. 0.3333 (3 to infinitive) * 3 = 1
Your calculator knows that. There is a video about at Veritasium chanel in some math theme one
@@aligator7181 and u keep on major to human imperfection... ;)
How can your calculator give a correct answer?
Two steps to check it
1. 1/3
2. Result * 3
Result? 1
Just because we can't do something it doesn't mean it's impossible
I gave a source
Check it out
Well explained by competent ppl
I save some time and search the exact name of the video, sec
Great video. I unfortunately know a lot of people who need to see this information, yet still argue statistics in ways that favor their own beliefs instead of challenge them. It’s frustrating for sure.
Here's my favorite: An airplane comes back from an aeriel battle. The data shows that most of the damage was on the wings, the fuselage, and nowhere near the cockpit and engine. So, the engineers decided to refine the armor on the damaged parts of the plane.
Also known as survivorship bias
Well of course if it shot in the engine. You know the pilot probably death to tell where the damage. and the plane explode of course.
@@justsomerandomweeb4243 Yeah that's why its misleading and my favorite.
@o m this is why people should read comment sections
Took me about 30 seconds to figure that out.
I thought he said headlights not head lice. Which confused me for a while.
Well headlights are healthy. Specifically when using vehicles in the dark
When he brought up the Middle Ages, I had this weird image of medieval knights in full plate armor with pop-up headlights attached to their helmets.
me too
same
Yeah I was like uhhh wut kind of nonsense is this now??
"Losing in Fortnite" , ah yes the main reason why people smoke
10 year olds smokers
teuw
true
The Wanderer 9
Marlboro just made a huge investment in a fortnight
Wandering Around in the uk those are common
Using statistics in court worries me a little since people should be proven guilty, not assumed guilty based on statistical models that are below 100%.
If the probability that the person is guilty isnt 100%, I say they go free.
@@mikaelvirji5807 Things are rarely 100%, but if there's not a convincing case and evidence then I think statistics should not be used in an attempt to sway the jury.
It can't be 100%. That is why they set the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt".
The most important lesson I learned in college is how statistics could be manipulated.
50% of youtube comments are true.
@@robrick9361 youre right
@@not_dark_lord So, which one of you lied?
You learnt to ma'ipulate them ? Sounds like a marvelously Angelic job.
@@Morningstar_37 Both. My comment is a true.
A couple of my favorites on the subject:
Figures don't lie, but liars do figure.
67.8% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
and is this one of them?
@@sudhanvakashyap297 Absolutely.
Lol I love it!
I had a brain fade for a second there
83% of statistics used to win arguments are made up on the spot.
Please update your data. ♥ ♥ ♥
For the “5% or 100%” question, the correct way to say it is either "the rates has increased by 100%", or "the rates has increased by 5 percent points". if you say the rates has increased by 5%" you mean that it has gone up from 5% to 5.25%.
Thank you 🙏it really bothered me in the video 😅
these verbal missleads should be illeagal as language accurecy is imporatant for delivering correct info... someone should be brain washed to be extemely honest and be the employer in some news company so that we will get only correct numbers said in a none misleading way
the media has the obligation to avoid misleading statements and make things clear. in this case, I would avoid putting a figure in the title and use the actual numbers in the first paragraph.
And there are SOOOOOOOO many misunderstandings caused by people not knowing the difference between percentage and percentage points.
how about just, "it doubled"
Statistical probability should never be allowed in court. It has no bearing on anyone’s guilt or innocence. That is why we use witnesses or physical evidence. Great job my hillbilly friend.
Witnesses aren't the most trustworthy source either
@@PeataPoeet But they can be cross examined to see if their story holds up.
Eyewitness testimony is, over all, is, far and away, the least reliable generally presented in criminal cases.
yeah I think that it's now no longer allowed in court. There are so many ways to make it look like one thing and be a totally different thing. The more qualities you rack up, the less likely a specific person in a group is to match that description, but it still doesn't prove it *was* them, it proves it's unlikely it wasn't them. It feels dirty to put someone behind bars not because someone saw them do it, finger prints were found and they had intent to do it, but because it's unlikely that anyone else fitting the description of the eye witness(s) exists in that city. I feel like it goes against the "innocent until proven guilty" rule of the courts.
@@tylerfitz2809 exactly
6:00 funny thing, In Swedish we have two words for percent. Procent ("percent") and Procentenheter ("units of percent"). In your example, the rate increased by 5 procentenheter(units of percent) and 100 procent(percent)
Lies! We all know it really doubled!
In English, it's called percentage point, but not everybody understands and uses these two terms correctly.
@@BharathRamMS I see. Thanks for the information
@@BharathRamMS apart from the media, and their perverted persuasions
@@BharathRamMS Puntos porcentuales en español too.
Well what I learned is that Target should be in charge of statistics in court cases because they do it much better than the actual court house...
Would you say they're on Target?
Target also had so good forensic teams to catch robbers that stole that were better than government forensic labs
Matthew Lange nice
@@Matthewsala lol
I really thought he said “headlights” the whole time until he said head lice-
Same
Imagine when you have a fever your headlights move elsewhere 🤣
at first i thought 'okay, maybe that makes sense since presumably the people who use headlights more than people who don't are less likely to be in car crashes, and that would affect their 'health' but nah, i'm just dumb.
THIS
This has just made me realize how easily I believe anything presented in a professional manner, and how easy it is to downright lie through a small omission of facts. It is truly scary.
I've worked on Wall Street and in military recruiting. Those positions exposed me to the world of data manipulation on a level that most would never comprehend. The tools/software available to entities that monitor us will blow your mind.
The concept doesn't surprise me, but I'm sure how accurate and pervasive it is would indeed blow my mind.
Could you suggest any resources for a simple mortal to know more???
@@amnbvcxz8650 not precisely on topic but look up Allen Dulles, the deception has been mind boggling for a long time
Would it be too scary to learn germ theory relies on statistics manipulation? The entirety of modern medicine (germ theory) rests upon correlation of data, and never direct experiments.
Exactly! So why do you think there was such a push for electronic medical records? Retired RN who also worked a few years in IT supporting several EMR’s. Also wrote reports to farm data from these and then sent my “ raw” data to quality assurance dept so they could “ scrub” it to them report out to others. I had to tag data elements in the system in order for that to show on the reports. How I tagged it and how I wrote the report and then how they merged my data w other systems reports made the final reports. So….. do I believe all of this COVID data from hospitals?? 😂😂😂
Very very good video. It’s so important to understand statistics today. In the workplace. In the news (especially the way media reports covid stats). A constant tactic of news is to say the such and such has doubled or gone up 3 times without stating the denominator. Correlation is another common tactic I see in the workplace and in the news.
No way! I used to watch your force arena videos but I completely forgot until now
i see you comment on a lot of videos but you dont upload anymore?
why
Clearly you don't understand statistics. Look at the raw numbers and per capita killers anually. Covid is #1
@Basically Al Capone in legal Look, this isn't basic intuition. not everything is JUST correlation either. You need to learn a p value and a hazard ratio, and learn to read a forest plot. stats arent this easily understood and people overcorrect, thinking EVERYthing under correlation is just that. No, there is a point where the chance of correlatiom is lower and lower and thus incresing chances of causation, especially with multiple explanations. This would be like observing the sun has gone up every morning for the past 2000 years. we don't know it will go up tomorrow, but it becomes so statistically impossible for it to not go up tomorrow, plus the use of astrophysic calculations, that it is "causation". in reality, everything is just a correlation we arbitrarily bump into the causation category until a better answer is found. This is typically based on the effect on humans. One of these examples would be chances of lung cancer from smoking. It's technically not causal, but do it enough in a population, and someone will invariably get it 100% of the time.
@@jenm1 If you look at the total deaths in the US compared to the last 5 years you find something weird. They have not significantly risen this year. Then look at deaths by cause in the US for the last 5 years. You will find that they are remarkably consistent up until 2020 when deaths by covid suddenly rise AND deaths from heart disease, cancer, influenza, ect. suddenly fall. So we must consider if something about covid or the circumstances around it is simultaneously good for heart disease, cancer, AND a large number of other causes of death or if (due to financially incentivizing hospitals for covid) we are massively misreporting deaths as caused by covid. Look at the context of the numbers. Not just the raw data. I wish you well.
Is it getting recommended because he used the word "Epidemic"
Or because many Corona virus arguments these days are being made with misleading statistics.
Not really. This video doesn't have 'Covid-19" info bar under it.
Sarcastic Hue The statistics for corona virus will never be accurate. For one, there are people who get infected but never show symptoms,plus the fact that it takes to weeks for symptoms to develop in the first place. Also, in the UK, they on,y count the people who are hospitalized due to Coronavirus. The numbers will always be less than the real amount of cases.
DocInAbox They’re starting to do that in the US too. You get tested if you’re obviously sick. If not, no. Because that will push down the stats on how lethal this really is, and people can’t seem to figure out for themselves population vs. fatalities, and figure out the percentage on their own.
Mango T yeah but they won’t test you unless you are in critical condition.
When I taught college-level statistics back in the 80s, I had one class session titled "How to lie with statistics" that went into examples just like these of exactly how people would try to mislead them with improperly used statistics. One of the other ones I covered was color scale manipulation with "heatmap" style graphs that use colors to indicate values. For example, a graph showing temperatures can influence what you think is "hot" or "cold" just based on what temperature is chosen as the midpoint of the red-blue transition. Or, two graphs can be shown side-by-side that have different color scales to make similar patterns look different, or vice-versa.
During WWII, the US government had research done on what parts of aircraft were most often damaged by enemy fire, to see if they could reduce aircraft loses by armoring those areas.
After research was done, they had a list of aircraft parts that should be upgraded, but a senior official informed them that their research was done incorrectly, in that it counted what parts were found damaged on aircraft that made it back to base.
He suggested that instead they should see what parts of aircraft were least often damaged on any aircraft that returned from missions, and to assume that aircraft which took damage to those areas had little chance of survival. So for example, lots of aircraft that survived missions came back with holes in their wings or fuselage, but very few aircraft that were hit in the engines or cockpits survived.
Josias von Leiswolf It was the RAF actually, the British airforce
thats pretty smart. i would have never come to such a conclusion
Shows that the method of the study is generally far more important than the results. Unfortunately, when we interpret studies we just read the results and try to assume the methods from those. I.e, results show that pets wrapped in wool blankets out-lived their naked counterparts by almost 4 years. Conclusion, wrap your pets in wool blankets. Methods: "50 household pets were held in a freezer at -20C for 5 years..."
@@gorkyd7912 That makes sense. Otherwise, people would be wrapping their pets in wool blankets with no real idea as to why. :D
I'm still trying to process the wording. I just don't get it.
The chance of there being somebody with your exact name, birth-date, weight, and appearance and hobbies are low enough, that I don't think it's reasonable to conclude that you actually exist.
I always had my suspicions.
In the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, there's a great quote related to this that I'm too lazy to look up. Roughly: in an infinite universe, there are an infinite number of worlds, including an infinite number of uninhabited worlds. The average population is thus zero, and we don't exist. Something like that.
Jajajajjajajajajaja
ah shit good point. FUCK
the chances of me;
being me:
is 1 out of 7000000000.
So I guess chances are,
I'm not actually
me.
80% of this video was brilliant. The other half was mediocre
😂😂
Other half... Hold up. 🤚🏻🤔❓
Lol.
80%
Other “half”
⭐️
/wooosh
So 10%?
This one of a few videos I come back to every few months, just shows you how well made this video is
going from 5% to 10% is 100% increase, but 5 procent points increase.
For correct mathematical therminology.
No. There is never a 100% increase when something goes from 5% to 10%. For example if you where to ask all the employees of company A if they enjoy work and 10% of them say no, then you ask again a year latter and 20% of them say no is that a 100% increase of people who do not enjoy there job or is there 50% decrease in staff. The only thing you can draw from that is 10% more of the total staff is unhappy.
If you where to say that last year we had 10 unhappy employees and now we have 20 yes that is a 100% increase, but that is a different question.
Question one what percentage of our staff are unhappy as of x year
Question two what percentage of our staff are unhappy as of x+1 year.
What are the numbers of unhappy people we have in the work place in x year
What are the numbers of unhappy people we have in the work place in x+1 year
5% is 5/100
10% is 10/100
10/100-5/100=5/100
@@generalharness8266 why you bully him?
@@generalharness8266 In the context of the video the number of the people that were in the sample of the population was not only the same but also known. It is true that you can't infer anything out of knowing only 2 percentages (not even that 10% more of the total staff is unhappy because which total staff are we talking about? if we are talking about the first one then you can't say that 10% more of those employees are unhappy because maybe they were fired later, the 20 percent has to do with the amount of people in the second sample, and if we are talking about the second one, again that first 10% has nothing to do with the second one.), but if you know that the numbers are the same then you can show that it's a 100% increace.
@@panosmpasiourasserrano7449 Not really. He askes at 6:21 in the sprit of this videa lets ask something else and that is which paints a more accurate picture and that is the a 10% increase will always more accuratly represent the data then every saying a 100% increase becasue to get that 100% incease you are no longer asking the same question. Please rewatch the vid at 14:43 and take note of how a different question while backed up with facts missrepresent the data. That is why I have said that 100% incease is not true as you have now changed the qestion you asked.
"Losing in Fortnite", I loved that
Klaudia Lustig so glad someone else caught it 😂
its what made me laugh at the video. so great.
Edgy.
Klaudia Lustig sense of humor I loved that
Me as well
Stuff like this needs to be taught more regularly in schools
Statistics was a class offered in my highschool
Everyone hated the statistics class my school offered
I believe the real solution isnt teaching more about statistics, since I doubt anyone in my class learned anything meaningful. Instead, it's how the subject matter is being taught. If everything in school was taught in the same manner as this video then I'm sure students would be learning much more
this stuff is taught in math 9 in canada
Isnt it normal to study graphs and stats in high school?