Belief in Statistics It is not likely that you will go one day without hearing at least one statistic quoted if you watch or access news media or sports programming here in the United States. Statistics are prevalent in most of our daily lives, in fact I would venture to say Americans are obsessed with percentages, probabilities and ratios. Of course there must be some form of tangible evidence to report trends for example, which can be accomplished with good statistics not overbearing statistics. So, why is it that so many are quick to believe reported statistics, even when they appear exaggerated? In this report I will examine people’s faith in statistics, provide an example of statistics taken out of context, and determine how the media …show more content…
Statistics provide hard and fast numbers or evidence to support what is being reported. If statistics are present we may instantly believe what we hear. On the other hand, little or no statistics are presented may result in instant skepticism or disbelief. Merriam-Webster (2015) defines belief, “a feeling of being sure that someone or something exists or that something is true” (para. 1). If we focus on the word feeling in this definition, you can bridge belief to emotion and or values. People’s quick belief in statistics may stem from their biases. Specifically, as Lickerman (2011) noted:
Confirmation bias, which causes us to pay more attention and assign greater credence to ideas that support our current beliefs. That is we, cherry pick the evidence that supports a contention we already believe and ignore evidence that argues against it (para. 9).
In other terms, people can be biased and emotionally bonded with an idea, with or without evidence. Statistics used in a report on something that people possess a preexisting belief in is just “icing on the cake.”
Out of
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Mainstream media’s intentional play on emotions while reporting gun violence statistics has been identified several times. For example, in the year 2000 various news outlets were reporting statistics showing thousands of children die annually in gun accidents with an average of 12 children dying from gun violence per day (Lampo, 2000). The play on emotions not too long after the Columbine High School shootings presented an exaggerated statistic. Omitted from the reports during that time was the fact that more children were dying from bike accidents and drownings. They were also counting youths up to the age of 20 as children, which encompassed a large group of gang youth killed in gang violence (Lampo,
Statistics provides us with very useful tools and techniques that aide us in dealing with real world scenarios. I have been able to learn several useful concepts by studying statistics that can aide me in making rational and informed decisions that are supported by the analysis results. Statistics as a discipline is the application and development of various processes put in place to gather, interpret, and analyse the information. The quantification of biological, social, and scientific phenomenons, design and analysis of experiments and surveys, and application of
• Provide at least two examples or problem situations in which statistics was used or could be used.
He author also uses statistics to inform the readers with facts. For example he says, “If you’re like the typical owner, you’ll be pulling your phone out 80 times a day.” He uses statistics to inform and persuade the the
the audience, and it is hard to put it to perspective. Therefore, a statistic is appealing to the
Who was it that sat behind the computer screen and typed what would soon be published in your favorite newspaper? When you read anything in the newspaper you do not know much about the author of the article aside from his or her name. With such little knowledge, how can you discern whether you are being presented with an article that is in compliance to reality or rather a story that has been transformed because of an author’s biased attitudes? Take for example The Fourth Branch, a student run newspaper at Tennyson High School. Writers of the newspaper do not have any special certification or degree, rather they are journalist enthusiasts who write about a wide range of news articles.
Statistics is defined as “the science that deals with the collection, classification, analysis, and numerical facts or data” (Dictionary.com,2012). Sometimes it is important to analyze statistical data in order to understand how something works or doesn’t work. In the case of American public education, there is tons of statistical data being thrown around, but what do all of these numbers really mean? How does this data help us? Although statistics provide clarity for constant scrutiny to the public education school system, they also help us to understand what were doing wrong in the classroom. In comparison of two different states, Nevada and Wisconsin lay at two very
8. In exploring the certainty with which people hold their beliefs a researcher proposes that those with more information about the topic will be more certain about their belief about that topic. Half of the participants are given 20 facts about a topic and are asked about their belief about that topic. The other half of the participants are given 5 facts about a topic and are asked about the strength of their belief about that topic.
Statistics, facts, data, and comparisons are absorbing and challenging to present in a way that is anything other than, well, boring. For purposes of an informational presentation, the statistics are unavoidable. However, in this
The next part of Student Learning Outcome #6 is recognizing opinions, facts, and inferences. Throughout my essay, I have included references in which are statistically based on research. To exemplify, it stated, "'It turns out that a significant amount of people report having personally experienced paranormal activity. In a study published in 2011, 28.5 percent of
In his 2013 book, Naked Statistics, Charles Wheelan explains a field that is commonly seen, commonly applied, and commonly misinterpreted: statistics. Though statistical data is ubiquitous in daily life, valid statistical conclusions are not. Wheelan reveals that when data analysis is flawed or incomplete, faulty conclusions abound. Wheelan’s work uncovers statistics’ unscrupulous potential, but also makes a key distinction between deliberate misuse and careless misreading. However, his analysis is less successful in distinguishing common sense from poor judgement, a gap that enables the very statistical issues he describes to perpetuate themselves.
Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation or explanation, and presentation of data. It is applicable to a wide variety of academic disciplines, from the physical and social sciences to the humanities. Statistics are also used for making informed decisions and misused for other reasons in all areas of business and government. Statistical methods can be used to summarize or describe a collection of data; this is called descriptive statistics. In addition, patterns in the data may be modeled in a way that accounts for randomness and uncertainty in the observations, and then used to draw inferences about the process or population being studied; this is called inferential statistics. Both
A current most spoken issue among the public media is gun violence or mass shooting however the crime is not as many as it was twenty years ago. The term mass shooting does not have an official set of definition yet, but the term indicates crime which is killing as many people as possible in a short time frame. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines it as “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area” (Sam Brock, Rachel Witte, and Joe Rojas). A mass shooting can begin due to several reasons: it could be background history, media, despair, or something else. Nico Lang, the author of America’s White Masculinity Complex and The Myth of The “Senseless” Mass Shooting says, mass shooting can also be related to mental “functions like the specter of ‘mental illness.’” A number of mass shooters have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. Are the mass media addressing the basic issue clearly? Of course, the media address the issue more than the violence expects to be addressed, but it is not overt enough. ….. By examining a variety of news media coverage on the subject of mass shooting, this essay concludes that when choosing stories to cover, the news media must take the general audience into consideration. Ultimately, what is at stake here is the media exaggerate the crime and report it disproportionally, and the distortion of reality can have variety of effects on the viewer or the general audience.
Statistics are used in articles, essays, reports, and journals to persuade people. We consider statistics good evidence, for supporting a thesis. Can personal experiences be used as good evidence? Why are we easily persuaded by statistics but are hesitant towards personal evidence? I started thinking about this topic while in class. We were talking about how some people don’t believe in science. For example, some people do not believe in global warming, even though there is lots of evidence supporting it. But, most of us can be persuaded with statistics.
In the excerpt from Don’t Believe Everything You Think The 6 Basic Mistakes in Thinking we are introduced to 6 things that cause us to believe everything we think. The first one is how “we prefer stories to statistics”. Humans like to base decisions or opinions based on stories they may hear from friends or family. The second example is how “we seek to confirm”, we side with information that goes along with our beliefs and ideas that we already had in place. The third example is how “we rarely appreciate the role of chance and coincidence”, which in short means we tend to ignore that things
So while I never want to take a statistics course, and while statistics scientifically involves so many numbers and mathematical principles, I am now interested in seeing how statistics is different from what everyone has said. It is wonderful to think that everyone can be connected through these