- Anna Maevahas quoted2 years ago
id you ever wonder why, if someone asks you to name a bunch of red things, you can do it so quickly? It’s because by concentrating on the thought red, represented here by a neural node, you’re sending electrochemical activation through the network and down the branches to everything else in your brain that connects to it. Below, I’ve overlaid additional information that resides in a typical neural network that begins with fire truck—nodes for other things that are red, for other things that have a siren, and so forth. - Historiahas quotedlast year
The city as a whole is safe—perhaps even safer than before—and one bad neighborhood is responsible for the increase.Outliers cans strew overall statistics. Say for example that everyone got around 90% on a math test, but one person flunked the test and got a 0, the class average is going to be less than 90% even though everyone got around 90%.
- Historiahas quotedlast yearNotice how this graph tricks your eye (well, your brain) into drawing two false conclusions—first, that sometime around 1990 home prices must have been very low, and second, that by 2030 home prices will be so high that few people will be able to afford a home. Better buy one now!
By adding more to the X-axis, you compress the graph, making the statistic seem more impactful and drastic.
- Historiahas quotedlast yearThe graph maker can get away with all kinds of lies simply armed with the knowledge that most readers will not look at the graph very closely. This can move a great many people to believe all kinds of things that aren’t so.
The truth is the legacy media are almost never telling us the truth about the world. Most of the things you see on the news is meant to blind you, a psyop. Not only are they misinforming us, they’re also manipulating graphs to guide us into making certain decisions. I’d say watch news but be perspicacious enough to analyze what u hear and see. In a way, social media may be a better news outlet than legacy media. But I’m sure all these media outlets are controlled by a shadow figure in Switzerland. Even twitter but I think twitter is better because it’s almost unregulated.
- Historiahas quotedlast yearFrom this, it looks like you’re just as likely to die from smoking as from not smoking. Smoking won’t harm you—old age will! The trouble with double y-axis graphs is that you can always scale the second axis any way that you choose.
Double y-axis graphs are very manipulative. I don’t see the reason for them other than to confuse or manipulate the viewer. Why? It’s harder to read, anyone seeing for the first time will either be confused or give up trying to understand the graph because it looks to complicated. I’d say if you ever see anyone trying to present a graph with double y-axis, they aren’t trying to inform you but trick you.
- Historiahas quotedlast yearFrom the graph, it looks as though increasing the money spent per student (black line) doesn’t do anything to increase their SAT scores (gray line). The story that some anti–government spending politicos could tell about this is one of wasted taxpayer funds. But you now understand that the choice of scale for the second (right-hand) y-axis is arbitrary. If you were a school administrator, you might simply take the exact same data, change the scale of the right-hand axis, and voilà—increasing spending delivers a better education, as evidenced by the increase in SAT scores!
That’s crazy. A small difference in a large scale isn’t significant especially when seen on a graph. But by changing the scale on a graph, you can make small difference look massive.
- Historiahas quotedlast yearI say “a lot of people are buying electric cars these days,” you assume that I’m making a guess. If I say that “16.39 percent of new car sales are electric vehicles,” you assume that I know what I’m talking about.
Not only does sounding smarter make people believe that you know what you’re talking about, but being specific and giving key details also gives you more trust and credibility.
- Historiahas quotedlast yearWhat biases might have crept in during the sampling?”
This is a very good tip for critical think and in general. If you’re ever told a statistic, you should always question its credibility or how it was conducted. Not only how it was conducted, but if it was a statistic involving human action or language, ask and wonder if they’re were any variables that may affect the results.
- Historiahas quotedlast yearIf you want to lie with statistics and cover your tracks, take the average height of people near the basketball court; ask about income by sampling near the unemployment office; estimate statewide incidence of lung cancer by sampling only near a smelting plant. If you don’t disclose how you selected your sample, no one will know.
Basically, if you want good statistics, you have to take a random sample of an entire data set. If you pick and choose samples and use it to represent an entire group, it’ll be inaccurate.
- Historiahas quotedlast yearMuch of what we read should raise our suspicions. Ask yourself: Is it possible that someone can know this?
This is a really good point. If there’s ever an eye opening statistic, you should always ask, how in the fuck did they do that? Then do your research of course. Most people don’t care enough about statistics they see unless it affects them.