Interrogating Numbers From Joel Best’s More Damned Lies & Statistics

Name the Better Sentence “Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled.” “The number of American children killed each year by guns has doubled since 1950.” “The number of American children (age 0-17) killed in homicides has doubled since 1950.” Still doesn’t account for population growth, suicides, accidents, or homocides?

Statistical Literacy All statistics are products of human activity, the process sociologists call social construction. All statistics are products of people's choices and compromises, which inevitably shape, limit, and distort the outcome of the measure. This simple concept is not taught in general ed math classes (and even some grad level classes)

How Humans Use Numbers… Missing numbers: stats that might be relevant to debates over social issues but that somehow don’t emerge during those discussions Legendary numbers: cited, but don’t actually exist Confusing numbers: basic problems that confuse our understanding of simple stats/graphs Scary numbers: statistics about risks & threats Authoritative numbers: products of scientific research Contentious Numbers: stats wars in which opponents hurl contradictory figures at one another Magical numbers: (you tell me)

The Critical Voice in Stats Being critical means more than simply pointing to the flaws in a statistic. Every statistic has flaws. The issue is whether a particular statistic's flaws are severe enough to damage its usefulness. Questions to ask How would changing the definition alter the statistic? How do the choices of measurements and samples affect the statistic? What would happen if different measures or samples were chosen? How is the statistic used? Is it being interpreted appropriately, or has its meaning been mangled to create a mutant statistic? Are the comparisons that are being made appropriate, or are apples being confused with oranges?