Perhaps that’s a made up term, “quantitative illiteracy,” but what DO you call it when people don’t understand quantititave data and simple statistical terms?
I am going to go fucking apeshit if one more person attempts to debate by mistranslating a statistical finding or by rebutting a statistic with a personal anecdote. I confess this has been inspired by one particular thread but I’d rather not link to it because this is not a problem confined to one debate.
I am sympathetic to those people who aren’t comfortable with math (for whatever reason) and it’s not their fault if someone declared them educated without making goddamn sure they understood a few important things about odds, means, and sampling. But you know what? They ought to acknowledge this shortcoming and stay the fuck out of specific arguments that involve statistics. You don’t see my ass jumping in on discussions that involve the theory of relativity or the correct translation of bible passages. Why? Because I don’t know enough and I KNOW I don’t know enough.
While I am at it, a tangential rant about stats: USA Today can suck the dick I unfortunately lack. They have this STUPID feature called “A look at the statistics that shape our lives” or somesuch and it always involves revealing something like the percentage of bowling alleys owned by immigrant bangladeshis. This shapes our lives? What?!
Perhaps that’s a made up term, “quantitative illiteracy,” but what DO you call it when people don’t understand quantititave data and simple statistical terms?**
My stats professor back in college called it numerical illiteracy. The inability to understand the informatoin derived from number, mathematics or statistics.
And it is shocking. It really brings home the ole saw about lies:
One of the few Heinlein aphorisms that continue to make me uncomfortable is his insistence that a human being who can’t do differential calculus or figure out the hypothetical orbit of their hypothetical spaceship isn’t really human, but a form of talking beast.
I’m math illiterate. I can do arithmetic and simple algebra, and the easier practical geometric exercises, but the rest is like hearing Chinese. I squeaked through trig in high school, thanks mostly to an incredible teacher who was patient enough to walk me through things to the point where I could simulate knowing what I was doing, but when I got to college I spent an entire semester sitting in a calculus class and not understanding a single word that the instructor spoke. Not even tutoring could help me. It was like an opaque wall between me and the subject matter. I’ve tried since then to go back to an area that I did know and work my way through to the higher maths. Didn’t work. I simply don’t speak math, other than a pidgin form that allows me to figure out how much I owe Uncle Sam and make sure the cashier didn’t cheat me on change.
Despite the above, I do agree with Cranky. I try to keep my nose out of threads (and conversations in real life) that require some knowledge of higher maths. I understand the vague concepts of statistics (like the difference between mean, median and mode), but not enough to actually contribute much to a conversation centering on it.
66.666% of Dopers agree with Cranky, but there was this one time…
All kidding aside, I feel you. After taking two semesters of stats I drives me batty when people make simple stats errors. As boring as it was, maybe all college students should be required to take at least one semester of stats.
Quantitative illiteracy? Muh pappy jes’ called it, “Eat up with the dumb-ass.”
Seriously, though, the number of people who can’t or won’t grasp basic statistical and numerical concepts boggles the mind. Math has never been terribly hard for me, and I have difficulty empathizing with people who are still deeply afraid of long division. I say the only way to cure it is early introduction to the concepts for children, that or horsewhipping.
Douglas Hofstadter (author of Godel, Escher, Bach) had written on this subject a bit earlier than Paulos did.
Thank goodness for the innumerate people. It’s because of them, that we numerate people have value. (Otherwise I might really have to work for a living, and wouldn’t have time to post on SDMB. :eek: )
“I am sympathetic to those people who aren’t comfortable with math (for whatever reason) and it’s not their fault if someone declared them educated without making goddamn sure they understood a few important things about odds, means, and sampling. But you know what? They ought to acknowledge this shortcoming and stay the fuck out of specific arguments that involve statistics. You don’t see my ass jumping in on discussions that involve the theory of relativity or the correct translation of bible passages. Why? Because I don’t know enough and I KNOW I don’t know enough.” Cranky, of course this makes sense, but how else are folks going to learn that they don’t know enough unless they take the plunge and try to respond about statistics, or the theory of relativity, or correct translations of bible passages? As painful and frustrating as it is to see someone post something completely out in left field about a topic one may know more about, I guess the best way to keep one’s sanity is to try to educate them. My inability to do math hasn’t stopped me from trying to do it or use it to explain concepts. And I’ve usually found that I’ve learned more from my failures than the few successes I’ve had.
Even though I am a math idiot, I feel for you too. I don’t know why statistics isn’t taught more, especially since it’s used so much in so many ways. Looking back at my troubled math past, I think I would far rather have taken statistics and basic accounting rather than Algebra. I don’t know why math is such a high anxiety subject for so many folks, myself included. I think that I have a complex against math, or maybe I just try too hard, or maybe I’m learning disabled when it comes to math. I don’t know. But here’s something weird for you. One time a friend of mine who is a math genius was taking a graduate level statistics exam, and he read me all the questions. For example, one question cited numbers for a survey and ask if X number was the minimum acceptable amount for a random sample. Anyways, after he’d read the question, I’d immediately answer yes, that’s statistically possible, or no, that’s not statistically possible. I’d even provide a few brief explanations for how I’d come to my conclusions. He then went on to use some elaborate formula to get the answers. He told me that I got every one of the questions right. :eek: He was amazed and a little pissed because he knows I can’t count to ten without using both of my hands and feet–It is truly painful watching me trying to figure out the phone bill or something–but somehow when I heard those questions, I just knew whether or not they’d make sense to do statistically. And I’ve never had a statistics class in my life, although I guess I’ve gotten friends to explain a few of the concepts of averages and random samples and stuff to me.
You know it just occurred to me that I just told a personal anecdote in a thread bashing folks who rely on anecdotes rather than statistical analysis to get their points across. Don’t hurt me, Cranky. I’m sorry.
Oops, I forgot to add to my other post. I think on that graduate level statistics exam that I aced [giggle] there were 7 questions. What’s the statistical probability that if I was just guessing on the answers that I’d get them all correct? Or, is this a proper statistics question, or more along the lines of a probability question? Oh, my head hurts. I’m so confoosed. Someone who can do math, please help me understand.
I guess it would help if, after providing a careful and polite explanation about the meaning of a statistic here on the boards, one would hear “Oh, now I get it! Thanks!”
Even better would be if they said “Say, isn’t tutoring paid $25 an hour? Can I send you a check?”
And FTR, I’ve got no problems with anecdotes on general; they’re often helpful. But if someone uses an anecdote to supposedly refute some study that surveyed 5000 people… well, that’s when I start looking for a high bridge with no guardrails.
Agreed that a failure to understand statistics is annoying. However, speaking as a person who frequently has to help friends with their maths (I’m a mathematician, they’re scientists, engineers or worse… economists. :eek: ) there are many people who, no matter how hard you and they try, simply Do Not Get It. Fortunately I haven’t been exposed to the type who do not get it and refuse to accept that they are wrong, but then I am at Cambridge, so we have to have some kind of minimum standard.
Basically what I’m saying is yes, there are decent people who generally have trouble with maths, but there are also some people who have no clue about maths and refuse to believe they’re wrong. Even worse are the people who say “Yeah, but that’s just numbers. It doesn’t have any relevance to the real world.” I had a friend like this. The only way we’ve remained friends is that we’ve learned to never ever get into arguments, especially if it involves something which I know about and she doesn’t have a clue (There are of course subjects which she knows lots about and I don’t have a clue about, but I’m willing to admit that I’m clueless. :)).
Sometimes I really do regret not being able to understand mathematics. It’s like I’m standing on the beach of a whole ocean of knowledge and all I can do is wade in the shallow end because I can’t swim and don’t have the coordination to learn.
Occasionally I get a vague awareness that there’s a whole body of literature that I’m missing out on because I can’t grasp how the “letters” of the language of mathematics go together to spell “words”, or the “grammar” of how those “words” go together to form a coherent “sentence”.
I regret that I can’t grasp the meaning. But I just can’t.
(geek alert) I actually took elective math classes in high school, placed past the math requirements in college. Tutored many folks (am personally responsible for my Buddy Paul getting through MSU’s algebra classes).
One of the things I used to do while tutoring it, I treated it as a foreign language, so we ‘interpreted’ a problem.
) there are many people who, no matter how hard you and they try, simply Do Not Get It. Fortunately I haven’t been exposed to the type who do not get it and refuse to accept that they are wrong, but then I am at Cambridge, so we have to have some kind of minimum standard.