Numbers. Nothing can be more clear, precise and pristine as a number. A single number is language at its purest form. 1 is clearly an entity of a specific value that is precisely different from 2, as 2 is different from 3, and so on and on.
As often said, numbers don't lie. But a community of numbers can be herded together, divided, then grouped together again, re-tallied, lined up, and voila! We have statistics. Given a new identity and re-clothed, it is now part of a tool that has a very technical sounding label - analytics. It has become an inviolable piece of information. It is now a tool to fashion an idea that turns into an agenda, soon a doctrine, and alas society is forever changed. How can something so singularly pure as a single number become part of a group of numbers that soon becomes a bedrock feature of policy decisions?
But first ...
Millions upon millions every summer make a pilgrimage to the beaches around the world. The salty air, the lapping water of a gentle sea or the roar of never ending waves, photos and selfies by the millions will go unnoticed by the world at large except for the friends and relatives who will get them via Facebook or twitter.
Then the unthinkable happened. A shark attack! The story becomes a media event even in places like North Dakota, small communities in outer Mongolia or Bhutan - places so far away from the oceans, yet the measure of fear as relayed on TV or the internet became real even when much of the people there may never come close to the water's edge of an ocean, let alone be waist deep in sea water.
TV and the news media in general, purveyors of statistical data whenever they want to, will for this one particular event ignore using statistics to help assuage the fear or concern of every person this one time when perhaps their viewers or listeners can be comforted by the concept of statistical odds. Shark attacks are so rare that a person somewhere in the world is likely going to suffer physical injury or death from a traffic accident or falling off a ladder at home than being bitten by a shark. Of course, people in general can be complicit in the misdirection because these are the same people who believe that their chances of winning lottery's Mega Millions are better than being hit by lightning. But the media will play the shark attack incident without ever mentioning that such an event is rarer than a human to be bitten by a dog.
Statistics originally came from Latin, then Italian for "statista", more about status directly connected to government affairs - hence how we come to know about The State of the Union. Statistics first surfaced in Germany in 1770, "science dealing with data about the condition of a state or community".
Statistics had become a science, worshiped by analysts and opinion makers, by politicians and merchandisers. It is also an art, worshiped by analysts and opinion makers, by politicians and merchandisers. It is also fashioned as a pseudo science, a tool to deceive, devised as a last minute closer in a desperate strategy to win an argument, because numbers as the means to an end have power, and in the hands of pundits or eloquence of a debater, statistics have a way of sounding infallible. What is it about statistics that can make us vulnerable? It is because numbers can be intimidating and a statistical quote gives power to the one who has it and renders defenseless the hapless one left to stare into the glare of numbers and charts, cornered into a position worse than a deer caught in the headlights. And statistics - one of its insidious nature - can be made up by anyone, who often may get away with it with very little consequences, unchallenged and worse - accepted.
The human brain is vulnerable to a barrage of information that come en mass, overwhelmed and often resigned to acceptance. Or, is it because emotions play a role? Take the most common generator of statistical data, the coin toss. We all know that the odds of heads or tails are always 50-50 in every toss. Now, after observing 23 consecutive heads - a formidable statistical data to confront the human mind - what is our expectation on the 24th toss? How does it influence our decision if it was a betting game? Some, if not all of us, will bet on tails, even betting more heavily than previously - forsaking the true odds of the toss to be still 50-50. Why? Because we harbor and are influenced by our memory. The coin is not encumbered by memory at all, oblivious to the prior 23 heads consecutive tosses. We become victims of statistics that deceive rather than help because our minds are influenced by memory rather than going by the probability rule for each toss.
Then there is this one that perplexes common sense. People remember and are still saddened that over 50,000 American lives were lost during the entire 10-year Vietnam War, and justifiably so. What escapes notice, however, is that during that same period, half a million people - male, female, young, old, sometimes an entire family - perished in traffic accidents in U.S. highways and roads. More were maimed and permanently injured. There may have been as much as 25 % to have been caused by drunk drivers. Yet, as a statistical number, people shudder at the Vietnam war deaths while inured to civilian deaths in the homeland. Today, car fatalities are less due to better vehicle safety technology but it is still a high number. Now, gun violence and death as a result do not come close to the number of traffic fatalities but the emotional response and the toll on the national psyche are far greater than the hundred-fold magnitude of difference between the two phenomenon. Politicians and activists use that human mind's vulnerability to advance an agenda but little is done to or attention applied to the extremely higher rate of fatalities and injuries due to the influence of drugs and alcohol while driving, which makes these everyday form of conveyance a far deadlier weapon than guns.
The human brain is vulnerable to a barrage of information that come en mass, overwhelmed and often resigned to acceptance. Or, is it because emotions play a role? Take the most common generator of statistical data, the coin toss. We all know that the odds of heads or tails are always 50-50 in every toss. Now, after observing 23 consecutive heads - a formidable statistical data to confront the human mind - what is our expectation on the 24th toss? How does it influence our decision if it was a betting game? Some, if not all of us, will bet on tails, even betting more heavily than previously - forsaking the true odds of the toss to be still 50-50. Why? Because we harbor and are influenced by our memory. The coin is not encumbered by memory at all, oblivious to the prior 23 heads consecutive tosses. We become victims of statistics that deceive rather than help because our minds are influenced by memory rather than going by the probability rule for each toss.
Then there is this one that perplexes common sense. People remember and are still saddened that over 50,000 American lives were lost during the entire 10-year Vietnam War, and justifiably so. What escapes notice, however, is that during that same period, half a million people - male, female, young, old, sometimes an entire family - perished in traffic accidents in U.S. highways and roads. More were maimed and permanently injured. There may have been as much as 25 % to have been caused by drunk drivers. Yet, as a statistical number, people shudder at the Vietnam war deaths while inured to civilian deaths in the homeland. Today, car fatalities are less due to better vehicle safety technology but it is still a high number. Now, gun violence and death as a result do not come close to the number of traffic fatalities but the emotional response and the toll on the national psyche are far greater than the hundred-fold magnitude of difference between the two phenomenon. Politicians and activists use that human mind's vulnerability to advance an agenda but little is done to or attention applied to the extremely higher rate of fatalities and injuries due to the influence of drugs and alcohol while driving, which makes these everyday form of conveyance a far deadlier weapon than guns.
The 2020 election, like all elections and everything that demands choices and decisions, will be one large playing field for statisticians and opinion makers.
Statistics - where and when it used to be a very valuable tool in mass production quality control, economic and political policies, health and safety standards, strategy for the environment and population management, vis a vis health and epidemiological responses, etc. - can be corrupted by anyone, by a group, or by factions whose only objective is to force an agenda down the collective throat of the population at the mercy of a dizzying collection of numbers. Polls that used to be reliable indicators are now taken with very little grain of salt.
Statistics - where and when it used to be a very valuable tool in mass production quality control, economic and political policies, health and safety standards, strategy for the environment and population management, vis a vis health and epidemiological responses, etc. - can be corrupted by anyone, by a group, or by factions whose only objective is to force an agenda down the collective throat of the population at the mercy of a dizzying collection of numbers. Polls that used to be reliable indicators are now taken with very little grain of salt.
Sometimes, it is not even about numbers but a kind of generalization or stereotyping that takes perceived statistical data into a motive to influence or a means to ignore. For example, after the suicide bombing in Sri Lanka, two major political personalities twitted about the bombing that killed and injured "Easter worshipers"... avoiding the more accurate identities of the victims who were all Christians. The same media that showed those twits without any more elaboration or commentaries, broadcast an upcoming Republican conservative event as something that would attract mostly "white Christian men" ... So, a former President and a former Secretary of State twitted their sympathies about a horrific event claimed by ISIS with a sanitized account to carefully avoid mentioning that the victims were Christian worshipers at the end of Holy Week while not mentioning that Muslim extremists claimed responsibility.
Statistics. Another of those discoveries by intelligent minds co opted to wreak havoc in the same manner that TNT was initially used to move mountains and dig tunnels have become a tool of death and destruction.
There is no vaccine against the misuse of statistics. There is only common sense but that too is under attack by political correctness and the onslaught of minority voices that speak in volumes not worthy of their causes but often go unchallenged because people have become complacent.
Complacency, if it is not one already, should be deemed the eighth deadly sin.
Statistics. Another of those discoveries by intelligent minds co opted to wreak havoc in the same manner that TNT was initially used to move mountains and dig tunnels have become a tool of death and destruction.
There is no vaccine against the misuse of statistics. There is only common sense but that too is under attack by political correctness and the onslaught of minority voices that speak in volumes not worthy of their causes but often go unchallenged because people have become complacent.
Complacency, if it is not one already, should be deemed the eighth deadly sin.
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