My own medical experience bears out points made in your last paragraphs. I agree that we expect MDs to know what they are doing when they say "take X and this infection will clear up," and similar things. We go to them with a problem and they hand us a solution. This transaction is conditioned by insurance and many other factors that are never mentioned (except, perhaps, once in a while that insurance will not pay for X, or all of X). One of the conditioning factors is statistics, which got X developed and approved in the first place and hence on the doctor's list. If the doctor said "this infection might clear up," or "could clear up," or "X has been shown statistically to work in this case," instead of "will clear up," my reaction would not change. I hope he is right that X is the right thing to take, but what are my options? I suppose alternative medicine. Medical decisions are backed by research and some guesswork and pragmatism. COVID exposed the mechanism and unleashed a storm of criticism and skepticism. But what changed? I think it's true that we tend to believe that numbers don't lie; yet we know numbers can be manipulated to justify almost any decision. People die because of bad medical decisions every day. Statistics support the decisions that ultimately produced this sad and unintended result. One benefit of reading your carefully argued and original essays is what I call the x-ray effect: there is the surface, and you point to what lies beneath it.
Once upon a time, I had a group of friends who loved to watch professional sports. They loved to bet on games, and they based their wagers on the statistical likelihood of one team beating the other. Before making each bet, they had fun spending hours analyzing the statistics amassed about each player to supplement their calculation of which team they thought was most likely to win. I used to ask them why they put so much faith in analyzing all that data. "Numbers don't lie, dude." They said. At the time, I thought it was a stupid, if funny and harmless, way of overvaluing statistics; that is, until years later when covid came along, and they all believed the projected numbers being thrown at us about how many people would die from this deadly new germ; how many lives would be saved if we locked down now for X number of months; how many percentage points your risk of infection would be reduced if you wore a mask; and suddenly their religious devotion to numbers didn't seem so funny and harmless anymore. What is it about statistics that bring out the true believer in people who otherwise make fun of religion? Is it as simple as a false sense of security? An easy workaround to critical thinking? Mass obedience to covid tyranny was creepy enough as it is, but it showed the dark side of people's unquestioning devotion to numbers and their inability to see how obviously manipulated or outright falsified statistics were being used to persuade them to do things that put their health, and their lives, at risk.
Thanks for jumping in here, Harry. You've made some great insights. I like the ritualistic aspect of stats worship you describe. I'm not into sports much, so it's a great reminder of how common this game truly is... the office sports pool and the all-star dream team... all built using stats. "Numbers don't lie, dude" -- that should be a title for an article.
My own medical experience bears out points made in your last paragraphs. I agree that we expect MDs to know what they are doing when they say "take X and this infection will clear up," and similar things. We go to them with a problem and they hand us a solution. This transaction is conditioned by insurance and many other factors that are never mentioned (except, perhaps, once in a while that insurance will not pay for X, or all of X). One of the conditioning factors is statistics, which got X developed and approved in the first place and hence on the doctor's list. If the doctor said "this infection might clear up," or "could clear up," or "X has been shown statistically to work in this case," instead of "will clear up," my reaction would not change. I hope he is right that X is the right thing to take, but what are my options? I suppose alternative medicine. Medical decisions are backed by research and some guesswork and pragmatism. COVID exposed the mechanism and unleashed a storm of criticism and skepticism. But what changed? I think it's true that we tend to believe that numbers don't lie; yet we know numbers can be manipulated to justify almost any decision. People die because of bad medical decisions every day. Statistics support the decisions that ultimately produced this sad and unintended result. One benefit of reading your carefully argued and original essays is what I call the x-ray effect: there is the surface, and you point to what lies beneath it.
I've had statistically significant thoughts about the use of "statistically
significant" since the start of the 2020 'covid' psyop...
I've a statistically significant number of times i've reminded others that
Facts, and statistical facts, are not the same...
Once upon a time, I had a group of friends who loved to watch professional sports. They loved to bet on games, and they based their wagers on the statistical likelihood of one team beating the other. Before making each bet, they had fun spending hours analyzing the statistics amassed about each player to supplement their calculation of which team they thought was most likely to win. I used to ask them why they put so much faith in analyzing all that data. "Numbers don't lie, dude." They said. At the time, I thought it was a stupid, if funny and harmless, way of overvaluing statistics; that is, until years later when covid came along, and they all believed the projected numbers being thrown at us about how many people would die from this deadly new germ; how many lives would be saved if we locked down now for X number of months; how many percentage points your risk of infection would be reduced if you wore a mask; and suddenly their religious devotion to numbers didn't seem so funny and harmless anymore. What is it about statistics that bring out the true believer in people who otherwise make fun of religion? Is it as simple as a false sense of security? An easy workaround to critical thinking? Mass obedience to covid tyranny was creepy enough as it is, but it showed the dark side of people's unquestioning devotion to numbers and their inability to see how obviously manipulated or outright falsified statistics were being used to persuade them to do things that put their health, and their lives, at risk.
Thanks for jumping in here, Harry. You've made some great insights. I like the ritualistic aspect of stats worship you describe. I'm not into sports much, so it's a great reminder of how common this game truly is... the office sports pool and the all-star dream team... all built using stats. "Numbers don't lie, dude" -- that should be a title for an article.