Data over Anecdotes

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Critical Thinking, Data, Longitudinal Studies, Statistics

 

People frequently use outlying data points to prove something true- the, “If he’d been wearing his seat-belt in that crash he would have died!” sort of thing. Sometimes I call folks out on this, other times not. If you tell me not wearing seat-belts is prudent because your father survived a horrendous car crash solely because he wasn’t wearing a seat-belt I’ll know that you are doing something we all do at times, using emotion rather than reason to decide what makes sense. Statistics prove the efficacy of seat-belts in providing protection in case of car crash, the survival of Daddy notwithstanding.

Emotions are important, they’re critical, but they can’t replace Critical Thinking. Data. Give me data. Lots of data. Longitudinal data. Stories, anecdotes and parables are fun and illustrative because outlying events do happen, but both personal decisions and public policy should be based on data, not some one in a million occurrence that shows remote possibility rather than likely probability.

People tend to use outlying events, anomalies, to “prove” their position, events like the centenarian pictured above who, despite a lifetime of smoking, is seen happily puffing away as she celebrates her one-hundredth birthday. The fact that she is particularly newsworthy because she runs counter to what we all know, that smoking decreases lifespan and increase morbidity- just plain old being sick -is ignored by some as they rush to “prove” that smoking is innocuous. No, it’s not. It’s a killer. This gal just has genes that allow her to do what most of us cannot.

That same logic is also used in reverse. Emotion over reason folks will find the octogenarian who is more fit than the average twenty-year-old, the individual who rose from the slums to become a world class leader or the person who beat pancreatic cancer and say, “See! They did it! You can too!”

“Can”? Yes. Will? Highly unlikely.

I’m not a defeatist, I’m not a, “Why bother?” Eeyore of an ass who thinks we’re doomed to failure, but as a believer in fact, in longitudinal, large population studies, I prefer to see the world as we know it is rather than how we’d like it to be. Hey, the world’s a dynamic little sphere and things can change, they can improve, but the first step is to stop lying to ourselves, stop selling our position that has little if any basis in observed fact, and attack a problem based on what we can demonstrate is true, not on what we wish is.

“Perception is reality,” is exactly what is wrong with emotional reasoning. Critical thinking is no guarantor of success but believing in the tooth fairy, the anomalous as illustrative of high likelihood, has been shown as contraindicated if the goal is taking actions that lead to a desired outcome.

I-n-d-o-c-t-r-i-n-a-t-i-o-n

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"Some Thoughts Concerning Education", Blind Belief, Data, Facts, Gun Deaths, John Locke, Lies and Statistics, Murder by Gun, Nature of Knowledge, Objective Reality, Opinion, Partisanism, Partisanship, Progress, Second Amendment, Subjective, Tabula Rosa, Truth

Early childhood education should be spelled i-n-d-o-c-t-r-i-n-a-t-i-o-n. This is so because even though we all come into the world hard-wired with preferences, instincts and genetic traits we enter, as John Locke phrased it 225 years ago, tabula rosa, or blank slate. Knowing nothing, the world is presented to us through the lens of the vast army that teaches us including parents, siblings, teachers and the myriad fold with whom we come in contact. We begin by knowing nothing and accumulate facts, knowledge and opinions as we age. There is a vast sea of facts that must be learned that vary from the simple to the sublime and in our earliest years this volume of information is presented in rudimentary and straightforward terms. This is true, that is false; one action is good the other evil.

This presentation of the world is as misleading as it is necessary. Knowing nothing, children must have basic building blocks with which to create a groundwork upon which to build. Subtlety and nuance  are for more sophisticated palates than those of preschool aged children and understanding that perception of reality differs mightily between individuals is a concept lost on many an adult. There are those who believe in our ability to describe and converse about true reality, but I am not one of them. I grant that reality exists, but insist that each of us has his own slant on how it is viewed.

The concept of subjectivity was brought to the forefront when I shared some gun violence death statistics via Facebook. A few weeks ago a strong Second Amendment friend of mine had said to me that two thirds of gun deaths in the USA were self inflicted, a statistic that was new to me. Being a skeptic I checked several sources and found multiple credible references confirming this statistic. I learned that typical data for recent years indicates that in the US we have roughly 100,000 gunshot wounds per year, 32,000 deaths but less than 10,000 murders. The vast majority of US gun deaths are self inflicted.

My main reason for sharing these stats was because I found them shocking. I did not know that we had such a high incidence of gunshots (100,000) and while I was aware of the 32,000 number I didn’t know how many of them were self inflicted. I was fascinated by the numbers and wanted to share with friends what I had learned. Of course, guns are a very touchy subject and I received a lot of very subjective responses to what I thought was a mostly objective post. You’d think I’d know better, wouldn’t you?

My little virtual encounter with the politics and passion concerning guns reinforced for me how black and white, how unnuanced, so many of us see our world. One of my trite little sayings is, “I believe in reality, it’s just that none of us has a monopoly on what it really is.” The problem is so many of us think we do. We do know the facts, the truth, the way, the right and those in opposition to us are wrong.

Strong beliefs are important but facts that differ from our world view present us with opportunities to grow. One of the most insidious maladies that the US seems to be suffering from is partisanism.  Too many of us refuse to look at all sides of an issue and try to find common ground and work toward pragmatic solutions. Refusing to look at the world from another person’s perspective is juvenile as is flippantly discrediting substantive data. Just because we were indoctrinated with simple concepts as children doesn’t mean that we can’t take our learning, understanding and living to a higher level and the first step towards getting along in peaceful coexistence is giving the other guy a chance to speak without shouting him down simply because his views differ from your own. If we can’t do that I’m afraid we’re all going to be stuck in nursery school till the end of time.