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I wish that journalistic integrity extended into statistical analysis, and that the bar for understanding of basic statistics were raised so that someone with a
by dinedal 16y ago
I wish that journalistic integrity extended into statistical analysis, and that the bar for understanding of basic statistics were raised so that someone with a high school degree would be as irked as you or I about poor excuses for analysis.
- goodside 16y agoWishing for normal people to understand statistics isn't reasonable. I'd also like a pony. But the first point is important: journalists shouldn't be allowed to publish statistical musings without some oversight from a statistician, which any reputable paper would have on staff anyway to avoid basic mistakes. Journalists would never be allowed to speculate as freely as this in deciding questions of climate science or molecular biology, but once it's a question of statistics everyone is instantly an expert.
- hugh3 16y agoPerhaps statistics, (of the relatively advanced variety rather than the mean-mode-median variety), should be inserted into every high school student's curriculum. It is, after all, far more important to the life of the average citizen than, say, trigonometry or calculus. And it ought to be easier to understand.