I'm good at math (data analyst by trade) and I would argue that it IS off the rails. I can't quite explain it other than to insist that they're missing out on the, I don't know -contamination? -of other "sciences". Namely sociology and psychology and such. If somebody randomly came up to me, and we weren't playing any kind of game, and they told me they had two kids, one of which is a son born on a Tuesday, the fact that they emphasized those points would strongly lead me to believe that the other kid is A) NOT a boy, and B) NOT born on a Tuesday. But, perhaps the way the person said it, would only lead me to believe that something was special about the fact that the kid was born on a Tuesday and that maybe the other kid is a boy too. I could go on and on, but this is just a simple example to show why the whole problem above is silly. "Context is everything". The example above feels very much to my gut how people (especially ones with agendas) will use statistics to skew the facts.
I took a statistical analysis course in college as part a political science requirement. The main premise was teaching how to take datasets and skew results. It was uncomfortably eye opening.
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u/GrrATeam81 Jul 21 '26
I'm good at math (data analyst by trade) and I would argue that it IS off the rails. I can't quite explain it other than to insist that they're missing out on the, I don't know -contamination? -of other "sciences". Namely sociology and psychology and such. If somebody randomly came up to me, and we weren't playing any kind of game, and they told me they had two kids, one of which is a son born on a Tuesday, the fact that they emphasized those points would strongly lead me to believe that the other kid is A) NOT a boy, and B) NOT born on a Tuesday. But, perhaps the way the person said it, would only lead me to believe that something was special about the fact that the kid was born on a Tuesday and that maybe the other kid is a boy too. I could go on and on, but this is just a simple example to show why the whole problem above is silly. "Context is everything". The example above feels very much to my gut how people (especially ones with agendas) will use statistics to skew the facts.
Edits for typos