I am terrible at math ? really, really awful. So imagine my terror, yes terror, at facing six hours of graduate?level (dare I say it) statistics. My brain just shuts down when I hear the word.
I knew statistics would be my downfall, because even people who liked math dreaded statistics. I could see my full scholarship floating away as I failed.
My first professor talked for an hour, and I didn’t understand anything he said. I was ready to pack my bags, but then I realized no one else understood him either. So we formed study groups and taught ourselves statistics.
We all survived.
Then I met the second professor. Thank God for him! He told us what he was going to teach us. Then he taught it. And last, he summarized what he had just taught. Amazing!
I ended up with nine credit hours of graduate stats, and I love it!
But statistics can lie. ?Here are what I call the simple tricks of the trade:
1. The “When Nothing Is Something” Statistics Trick
On charts, the right way is to start at zero.
But if you want to stretch the truth, start above that number.
If I start with no llamas and end up with three, that is good. But if I start with four llamas and end up with five of the little monsters, I didn’t do as well.
2. The “I Can Pinch Your Head” Statistics Trick
Let’s look at a picture of four people standing in line. Two look twice as big as the other two. And the trickster wants you to think that. But it isn’t true. Remember when you acted like you could hold someone’s head between your finger and thumb, then pinch it? This one is all about perspective. The two “little” people in the picture are just standing further away than the “bigger ones.”
3. The “Floating Number” Statistics Trick
Buy now! Save 75%! Sounds good. But save 75% of what? It could be 75% of the seller’s profit or her original cost or her last month’s sale price. In other words, if the merchant doesn’t explain the whole situation, the floating number (the semi-attached number) means nothing.
4. The “Close Isn?t Good Enough” Statistics Trick
Any time you use statistics, there is a little wiggle room (Margin of Error). The poll takers are saying that they could be off by 2%, 3%, or 5%. This wiggle room isn’t usually a big deal ? that is unless you are Al Gore running against George W. Bush for president.
5. The “Cherry-Picking The Results” Statistics Trick
When you look at a graph, the lines go up or down or up and down. The highest point shows where the action is, but people can take a number from the lowest point or where the action is not. Then they say, ?Look how bad things are going!?
6. The “I Mean, It’s The Average” Statistics Trick
People can use ?Average? and ?Mean? interchangeably (distribution), but they are not the same thing. Here, average is adding up 11 numbers. Then dividing that total number by 11. Mean is arranging 11 numbers from the lowest to the highest, then picking the number at the very center. It would look like this:
Average – 100+250+50+15+1+400+500+30+150+200+70 = 1766
Then divide the total (1766) by 11. The Average is?160
Mean ? 1-15-30-50-70-100-150-200-250-400-500. The Mean is 100.
I used the same numbers – just in a different order to get the Mean. If I wanted to know the average number of people who ran in 11 races, I would say 160. But if I wanted to downplay the number of runners for some reason, I would go with the mean, which is 100.
7. The “Thinking Stupid” Statistics Trick
If I tell you about a situation, then you can trust my conclusion (Post Hoc Thinking). One study showed that there were fewer men than women, so women got out there and nabbed the first guy they saw. As it turns out, the study was wrong. Oops.
8. The “It’s My Turn” Statistics Trick
If I throw a ball at a basket 10 times, then I’m due a basket. But life doesn’t work that way. I might never hit the basket if I am really bad at the game, or if my arm is getting tired, so my shots will be worse.
9. The “Predicting The Future” Statistics Trick
If I notice a situation that is going downhill and assume it will continue to get worse (extrapolation), I might be wrong. If a woman’s fingernails grow one inch in one year, 2 inches in the second year, then eventually her nails with be 36 inches long. Not likely.
10. The “Girls Can’t Understand Math” Statistics Trick
We hear this – a lot. When my daughter got a ?B+? on an algebra test, her teacher said:
?See, you aren’t as dumb as you thought you were.?
Fortunately she had good self-esteem. She said,
?I never thought I was dumb.?
Women aren’t math-stupid. Maybe we just never had good teachers.
