The reason why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so skeptical towards statistics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Statistics can be gamed to say or suggest whatever you want it to say. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
For example, some problems of statistics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Hidden agendas and motives for whoever funds the studies.<\/li>
- Cherry picking of data, and sweeping \u00e2\u20ac\u0153outliers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d under the rug.<\/li>
- People assume numbers and data is ultimate truth (data deification<\/a> in Silicon Valley<\/a>)<\/li>
- Statistics cannot \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prove\u00e2\u20ac\u009d anything, but can falsify (Karl Popper) false ideas.<\/li>
- Statistics comes from the notion of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the State\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Thus all statistics has a political or governmental or state-based angle.<\/li>
- Collection methods are often dubious. Either those administering the surveys are either incompetent, or people who fill out these forms lie or under-represent (or over-represent the truth).<\/li>
- Many studies are observational<\/strong><\/em> studies, not experimental<\/strong><\/em> studies. Observation doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell the truth. Experimental (double blind studies) are far more expensive yet accurate and does uncover some hidden truth. For example it is unethical to do a study which forces women to drink 2 glasses a wine a day while pregnant vs a group of pregnant women who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t drink alcohol to answer the question: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is drinking alcohol for pregnant women bad for the future child?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> An observational study can suggest<\/em> (not prove) that women who typically drink more alcohol lead to more child births with complications. But also what the observational study will show is that women who typically drink a lot of alcohol while pregnant ALSO<\/em> smoke, ALSO<\/em> do heroin or other weird drugs. Or women who typically drink a lot also are part of a lower socio-economic class, thus has less access to good health care. Therefore we cannot trust observational studies<\/strong>. Observational studies ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hard science.<\/li>
- Small study sizes<\/strong>. Most studies are sooooo maps all (involve fewer than 20 individuals) which cannot be generalized to the vast population.<\/li>
- Issue of replicability<\/strong>: Many old school Harvard or Stanford psychology studies have not been able to be replicated today. If a study or experiment cannot be successfully replicated from 30 years prior to today, the findings from the study probably cannot be trusted. <\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The reason why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so skeptical towards statistics: Statistics can be gamed to say or suggest whatever you want it to say. For example, some problems of statistics: Hidden agendas and motives for whoever \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":267685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/80A95101-5512-4E9A-9125-40DD107DEF2D.jpeg?fit=1668%2C2224&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267683"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267697,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267683\/revisions\/267697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}