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The authors then take the reader on a tour of quantitative fallacies with several examples, all explained clearly and with humor. The reader will learn how to differentiate between correlation and causation, spot biased and unrepresentative data and small sample sizes, identify selection biases in samples, understand how data can be manipulated visually, and more. The reader will also learn how to properly evaluate scientific claims, and how the anti-vaxx movement is based on a single, thoroughly-debunked scientific study that massively confuses correlation with causation, among many other problems. I think you need to read this book. It’s not urgent, anytime over the next couple of weeks will do fine. I was thinking while I was reading this of Bad Science (which you should also read, not least since the jokes are much better), but the advantage of this book is that it is written by people who are (how do I put this in a way so as not to hurt their feelings?) relatively dull. Dull, it’s true, but systematic (or do I repeat myself?) And so, they present the seemingly endless ways we can have bullshit served up to us in ways that feel very comprehensive. And then they go about teaching us all the ways we can train ourselves to notice. (You know, “Hang on – this smells like bullshit…”) Tom, you clearly think confidence is a cod and this strongly-held opinion trumps a fair-minded scrutiny of the scientific literature. This is an entertaining book about recognizing bullshit, researching and calling it out. Much of the book describes the various types of bullshit, and the research required to snoop out its origin. Then, a short portion of the book is about calling it out; how to call it out, and even when to call it out. The book is filled with anecdotal bullshit, and the research the author used to ferret out its origin. Much of the bullshit is unintended--it is simply a matter of passing along incompetent analyses and conclusions. When bullshit is intentional--that is simply called lying. So creating bullshit is easy; refuting it is hard. And it is precisely this asymmetry that explains why bullshit persists and how it can even grow over time.
I started this book while waiting for Abbu outside the ICU. The book ends today. So, today again I went to the hospital in front of the ICU. The tutorial system displayed on a bi-weekly basis who was intelligent and hard working. The conversation at hall dinner served the same purpose. The only snobbery I encountered was intellectual, people tended to sneer at those who only took an interest in their own subject, or who couldn’t keep up. Surely a better choice would have been a picture of David Cameron or one of the goons in Brussels, all of whom were ‘confident’ that the British would vote to remain in the EU. Or a picture of Hillary on the campaign trail in 2016. Or a picture of Guardiola, who was confident that his bizarre team selection would beat Chelsea the other night. On the other hand, I suppose all those examples might have disproved the message of the book.The authors are expert guides. Carl Bergstrom is a theoretical and evolutionary biologist who researches how information flows through biological and social networks. Jevin West is a data scientist who studies misinformation in science and society. Together, they teach a popular undergraduate class offered under the same name by the University of Washington.
In Bad Advice, relationship expert Dr. Venus Nicolino—a.k.a. Dr. V—takes a blowtorch to the shrink-wrapped, “feel good” BS that passes for self-help these days. When you’re heartbroken, what do you hear? You can’t love anyone until you love yourself. When someone’s hurt you? Nobody can make you feel bad without your permission. When you’re just a little too positive? Expectations lead to disappointment. Who amongst us is without sin? And I’m not just asking for a friend. We’ve all shared something on the internet that we regret. Especially when we realise with a rush of all-too-rare self-awareness, that the reason we posted it was because it appealed more to our prejudices than to our reason. This is inevitable. And this is also one of the things the authors repeatedly warn us we need to worry about. They quote Neil Postman saying that the person most likely to fool you is yourself. Confirmation bias is our number one, very favourite flavour of bias. So, finding ways to trip ourselves up before we start accepting as true the latest factoid that proves that all those bastards from the other side are selfish, nasty hypocrites is essential. We need to take time to pause. Although, that is easier said than done, obviously. But I’ve said it now, so, all good. Unfortunately, Robertson’s actual book is, again, so confident in the importance of confidence that he overlooks the shakiness of the science he cites. I’ve written and read a lot about the “replication crisis” over the last few years, and you get a bit of a sense for the sort of psychology studies which will turn out to be garbage . And my alarm bells were ringing constantly as I read this book.I hope the ideas within are widely circulated, understood and applied by readers. If you're curious, I expect that your library already has this book available for you to browse, and to see what you think. So after surfing the web to find a blank template for the well known Dummies novels....I thought it was both humorous and appropriate. Recently I was at a kind of launch event for a new data science unit. At the end of the teaching demo, a government representative stood up and said that a good 95% of data science graduates are not good for their purpose, they can run algorithms and analyse data but they have zero critical thinking skills, and sometimes present results that are obviously nonsense if you stop and think about it. West/Bergstrom identify this too:
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