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"We know, for example, that “relative risks” can be used to look impressive." This is, sadly, extremely true and even more sadly, very often used. 5 times more
by cisstrd 11y ago
"We know, for example, that “relative risks” can be used to look impressive."
This is, sadly, extremely true and even more sadly, very often used. 5 times more likely to die from x, sounds impressive, risk increase from 0.001 to 0.005 percent does not. Newspapers want to ... sell newspapers, and sounding dramatic is part of it. If every person capable of reading "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre did so, this would be a better world. It's by the way the best I've seen to give the amateur an understanding of statistics, studies, being critical, manipulation by media, et cetera... (while being entertaining and an easy read, a frequent present of mine to other people).
"Depends on what you mean by rational. I don’t like that word. You could use other words like “value-congruent,” which fit in with what people feel is the appropriate value. Those are the decisions they will make and not regret in the future."
"Value-congruent", nice one. "Rational" is indeed one of those empty words that is thrown around.
One thing I also find incredibly important: People have to understand science is a METHOD, not an AUTHORITY. Because people don't listen to authority, but in many cases they can't argue much with reason. This is incredibly important, a lot of the anti-science sentiment stems from viewing science as an authority, and this is extremely stupid.
- Fomite 11y agoIt should be noted that there are reasons, both good and bad, for why we use relative risks: http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2010&issue=01000&article=00002&type=Fulltext http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Pages/articleviewer.aspx?year... Also, at this point, relative risk models are much more well developed. While we'd all love absolute risk measures, if you have to choose between an absolute measure with known confounding we can't handle with current methods, or a relative measure that can, the choice is much less clear.
- cisstrd 11y agoAt the end of the day, as noted in the article, different data has to be presented in different ways, or actually the same set of data may be presented in different ways, it depends on what you want to focus on, what exactly is your subject of interest, et cetera. But, and that's my point, if the entity responsible is not interested in how to represent data or a certain conclusion one has made as clearly as possible to the public, but to sell newspapers and get clicks[1], then what do you expect? So it is not my intention to disregard any form of presenting/visualizing data without a specific example or proper context. [1] It is my personal belief that Social Media, Twitter, and the short attention span of the modern age all aided extremely in this. If you look at "sophisticated media outlets" at Facebook, they are playing the click-bait game nevertheless. How to be on Facebook or Twitter and not be a tabloid?
- Fomite 11y agoThis was actually more of a general note than one addressing you specifically. I've seen "Relative measures are wrong and bad and you should feel bad!" enter what I'll call the "Educated Layperson" lexicon regarding statistics, while ignoring that there are often very good reasons for why these choices are made.