Statistical literacy thoughts

This recent interview with Stephen Pinker about the statistically provable massive decline in violence in humanity, and decreasing amounts of strife and war, has this bit that resonates strongly with me:

A small portion of the population is willing to be reasoned with, but when I tell my reasonably intelligent sister that “children are probably safer today than at any time in human history” she scoffs at me as if I am telling her that cigarettes have nothing to do with lung cancer. She is so dismissive she won’t even read the few things I have given her about it, and her attitude is not uncommon.

One necessity is greater statistical literacy among the population and especially among journalists. People need to think in terms of proportions rather than salient examples…

Recently people got upset with me because I had the audacity to say that, from my perspective, the US is a very rich country and most of its citizens are well off.

Notice I never said all. I said most.

I grew up in the developing world.

The PPP (purchasing power adjusted per capita) per capita of Grenada, where I grew up, is $10,200, and in the US is nearly five times that. Average household income estimates are all over the place and hard to find officially anywhere, are from $5000 to $10,000.

The idea that my ‘eyes are closed’ is extremely insulting.

But someone who’s living in the lower class in America can be understandably frustrated because most of what they see is other people in the same boat, as we surround ourselves with bubbles of other similar people by default. They view the world through the own lens. Even if, someone in the lowest 10% of the US (considered in poverty), has probably access to more than the median citizen where I grew up.

The statistics mean nothing, because to most people, they are statistically illiterate on a knee-jerk basis. I’m suffered, from my perspective, and therefore the idea that America is rich, prosperous (compared to any international set of statistics) is dismissed out of hand.

But the fact remains the average American makes vastly more than the average person I grew up around.

Does that mean America’s the most bestest thing evars? If you’ve been reading this blog, you know I’m happy to critique where I think things could be better. The US has slipped past the #1 rankings in many indicators (education, healthcare, length of life, infant mortality) while remaining near the top in (average salary, number of millionaires, size of army). I think those first three mean there needs to be some innovation if the US is to pull out of being ranked #20 in many different rankings, and “Not Invented Here” has become a serious impediment to the adoption of what is looking like successful real world on the ground approaches to benefiting the citizenry (i.e.: health ins. *should* work a certain way in a perfect world in a libertarian mindset, but on the ground in the real world, other countries’ approaches are providing statistically superior results. Dismissing them out of hand has very serious down-the-road implications because if the libertarians are wrong, it’ll take generations to course correct as other countries run even further ahead. For the US to slip from #40 to the 60s or 80s in terms of healthcare rank would not be good).

But all of that doesn’t change the enormous fact that the US is still part of the top 10 (or if you want, top 20) nations in the world. Which still means you, as an average citizen, are still extraordinarily well off.

But that doesn’t matter, many will say. Because my anecdote trumps all those numbers.

End of story.

Of course, that’s exactly what the other side uses. Misery, fear, and anecdote. Because anecdote is a narrative, and humans crave it.

Here’s a single story of a person who was ill served by system X. Therefore, the conclusion is that system X is a failure. The other 99 successful instances don’t count on a fundamental level to humans because of that one anecdote.

Education is an antidote. Statistical literacy is a must.

Filed under the topic Uncategorized on October 4th 2011 at 12:37 pm. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.