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> It's not just that the US government is encouraging fraud, it's also that the average American hates AI and data science. When all they see is it being used

> It's not just that the US government is encouraging fraud, it's also that the average American hates AI and data science. When all they see is it being used to push narratives, they'd rather not have it at all. Also, "There Are Three Kinds of Lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics" dates to the 1800s. This is nothing new.

XorNot 8mo ago
It is impressive how much damage that phase has actually done to human progress over the last two centuries.
- MarkusQ 8mo ago
  Nothing compared to what the misuse of statistics to give bunk a veneer of mathy authority has done though.
  - XorNot 8mo ago
    Ah yes and the alternative of just engaging in magical thinking is working out so well. That quote is solely used to add thin validation to simply rejecting critical consideration of every evidence.
    - MarkusQ 8mo ago
      I have no idea what you are talking about. I'm firmly in favor of fact based thinking, and (I suspect) share your disdain for magical thinking. My objection is to the selective use of statistics to shape the facts to support a predefined narrative. Statistics are, first and foremost, a set of techniques for summarizing and simplifying data by reducing a large amount of raw facts to a few easily grasped parameters. They can be very powerful when used for good (e.g. to help you answer your own questions about the data) but that very power can even more readily be abused for evil when they are used to persuade others. This is what the quote refers to. Statistics are a powerful way to lie. That's what it says, and it is true. Examples: p-hacking, Anscombe's quartet, all manner of chart crimes, the numerology of quants (there's some magical thinking for you), the isolated, uncontextualized "significant numbers" so loved by journalists, etc. As for your claim that it is "solely used to add thin validation to simply rejecting critical consideration of every evidence"... do you have anything to back that up? Note that as worded it is clearly false, since I am using it in the original sense and it only takes a single exception to refute such a broad claim.

XorNot 8mo ago

It is impressive how much damage that phase has actually done to human progress over the last two centuries.

MarkusQ 8mo ago
Nothing compared to what the misuse of statistics to give bunk a veneer of mathy authority has done though.
- XorNot 8mo ago
  Ah yes and the alternative of just engaging in magical thinking is working out so well. That quote is solely used to add thin validation to simply rejecting critical consideration of every evidence.
  - MarkusQ 8mo ago
    I have no idea what you are talking about. I'm firmly in favor of fact based thinking, and (I suspect) share your disdain for magical thinking. My objection is to the selective use of statistics to shape the facts to support a predefined narrative. Statistics are, first and foremost, a set of techniques for summarizing and simplifying data by reducing a large amount of raw facts to a few easily grasped parameters. They can be very powerful when used for good (e.g. to help you answer your own questions about the data) but that very power can even more readily be abused for evil when they are used to persuade others. This is what the quote refers to. Statistics are a powerful way to lie. That's what it says, and it is true. Examples: p-hacking, Anscombe's quartet, all manner of chart crimes, the numerology of quants (there's some magical thinking for you), the isolated, uncontextualized "significant numbers" so loved by journalists, etc. As for your claim that it is "solely used to add thin validation to simply rejecting critical consideration of every evidence"... do you have anything to back that up? Note that as worded it is clearly false, since I am using it in the original sense and it only takes a single exception to refute such a broad claim.