Lies, damned lies, and statistics

arno_ed · May 28, 2014

I always love/hate how people do not understand numbers and statistics, Or know them but use them wrongly to get a point across.

One of the beste example is Fox new with this graph

They clearly tried to get a messag acres, hence the not showing numbers on the Y axis, and not letting the Y axis going to zero.

I found a interesting website with interesting correlations:
http://www.tylervigen.com/

For example:

Which one do you all like?

Panda23 · May 28, 2014

nicholas cage lmao

brantonli24 · May 28, 2014

I recently got into an argument with a Cavs fan who thought that the Cavs own pick for the 2011 draft shouldn't count towards the total probability of the Cavs winning the lottery (they won it with the Clips pick). Also, apparently this is an interesting anomaly in how people perceive stats:

Say you are walking through the woods, and you come cross a campsite that has been heavily damaged, tents ripped apart etc. A park ranger is there, and he asks you:

What do you think are the chances a wild bear did this?

(give a guess first).

then he also asks

What do you think are the chances a wild animal did this?
(give a guess too)

The anomaly:

What experiments find is that people often give a higher probability to the 1st question (bear) than to the 2nd one (wild animal), because they mistake similarity with probability. However, wild bears are a subset of wild animals, and therefore the probability of a wild bear must be less than or equal to the probability of any wild animal causing the damage. of course these questions should be asked independently and to different people, so it probably won't work on a forum

arno_ed · May 28, 2014

brantonli24 said: ↑

I recently got into an argument with a Cavs fan who thought that the Cavs own pick for the 2011 draft shouldn't count towards the total probability of the Cavs winning the lottery (they won it with the Clips pick). Also, apparently this is an interesting anomaly in how people perceive stats:

Say you are walking through the woods, and you come cross a campsite that has been heavily damaged, tents ripped apart etc. A park ranger is there, and he asks you:

What do you think are the chances a wild bear did this?

(give a guess first).

then he also asks

What do you think are the chances a wild animal did this?
(give a guess too)

The anomaly:

What experiments find is that people often give a higher probability to the 1st question (bear) than to the 2nd one (wild animal), because they mistake similarity with probability. However, wild bears are a subset of wild animals, and therefore the probability of a wild bear must be less than or equal to the probability of any wild animal causing the damage. of course these questions should be asked independently and to different people, so it probably won't work on a forum

Click to expand...

This reminds me of a joke in the daily show:
The chance that the Nern centre will destroy the world is 50%. There are only 2 options, either it destroys the world or it doesn't destroy the world, so 50%.

The Captain · May 28, 2014

Chance that old white men hate Obama = 100%.

Nero · May 28, 2014

I guess the question is really this: is missing your minimum target by over a million people a big thing or a little thing?

arno_ed · May 28, 2014

Nero said: ↑

I guess the question is really this: is missing your minimum target by over a million people a big thing or a little thing?
Click to expand...

No it isn't. This thread is not about Obamacare or fox news it is about statistics and numbers. This was just a very funny way of wrongly a graph to try and make a point.

I would prefer you stayed on topic. I do not want this thread to end up in de D&D

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Lies, damned lies, and statistics

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