Takeaways: 1) there is great misconception by the public 2) the disjoint between what people perceive and what is reality shows that statistics is a very important subject
Loved the talk! I also noted that this was by far one of the most clean and well thought out presentations in a long time. (Clear, but well supporting slides, getting the message across, etc..)
There is something wrong with the TED community. Even when a dude talks about an online thingy he made about statistics, the comments get political in a matter of seconds
This video was very well informing and communicative. I greatly relate to this video and had taken away so much I really thank you for releasing his video and teaching me he importance, value and meaning of statistics. My favorite example ad eye-opening moment was the u16 video at 9:10 where the survey contents were described. Thank you again!!
I have a degree in Math & Economics and I hated statistics in college, so much so I had to take it over. However, one of my favorite books in my 20's was a book on quantifying statistics in a meaningful way. Go figure.
This didn't have much with people's ability to "understand and work with numbers", though, at least not as he presented it. People weren't wrong about the stats because they didn't understand the stats. They were wrong about the stats because... they didn't know them. They were just guessing based on observations they had made in every day life. That's not being bad at stats, that's lacking information or making poor observations.
I agree with you here. The talk is mislabeled. More accurate would be something like "How the average of peoples' uninformed guesses about things compare to undocumented surveys." There probably are several interesting things about that, but numeric literacy isn't one of them.
On the exact same page as you here. This has nothing to do with not being good at numbers but rather a social phenomenon called cultural relativism. In the examples early on in the presentation if the same question about how many people are muslim or how many people are obese were asked in each country, you'd get a different answer and it would be wrong unless you really are studying said field. Then, if the same question is asked within a subset of each one of those countries, then the answer would be different again. Unless this talk is getting at the subjectivity of statistics or estimating values, then I see where it's coming from but the label of the talk doesn't align with the content.
In the Japanese survey, urban versus rural is a vague distinction. In the US, I once moved from New York City to Philadelphia, another large American city. My cousin, who lived in New York City his whole life, asked if you needed to boil the water out of the tap in order to drink it, apparently thinking that Philadelphia and Pennsylvania must be a back-woods area with unreliable public utilities. Some people in NYC tend to look at the densely populated areas of New Jersey (one of the most densely populated US states) as being "the countryside" and I think that a similar vague distinction between urban and rural may be true of the people who live in the larger cities of Japan.
3:41 Statistics comes from the German word 'stadt" which means not "state" or "community" in English but rather "city". It refers to the data taking of data about city populations in Germany.
Thank you - inspiring. Goes to show, anyone can do anything, if they want to and if they find it has a purpose in their lives and in the lives of others
The first few stats in the lecture, where were their median counterparts? He said they were averages, and those things can be skewed. I'm curious to see what those graphs would tell
I was on holiday in a shopping mall in Denver and was asked if I would like to answer a few statistical questions? My answer was no thank you, can't be bothered, but more importantly, as an English tourist, my knowledge of American products and services is negligible. Doesn't matter, replied the beautiful young lady with the big smile and the pen, you get 10 dollars and it takes about 10 minutes. So I came away 10 dollars richer and the interviewer added one more successful set of statistics to her tally that day. Alan Smith describes statistics as a Science. 'The 'Science' of dealing with data' is what he calls it, and attempts to give it some credibility by aligning it with Mathematics. It mostly depends what you ask, and who you choose to ask, which makes it about as credible as astrology is to an astronomer. Come to think of it your daily Horoscope is probably more scientific.
Statistics is not about uncertainty- In fact what most of the people fail to understand is that Statistics and Probability give us the 'MEASURE' of uncertainty, and hence giving a MEASURE of certainty. It quantifies the level of certainty and hesnce gives us a measure. It is one of the most important forms of Applied Mathematics. Especially useful in this age of data and artificial intelligence. #Beuatiful#MathematicsandStatistics
Laura Lexi ? Median is the middle number of the data, and average is add all data together rand divided the number of data it has. I believe that’s how you should calculate since middle school? Or is it different in statistics?
@@barneyy6942 Hi Laura, I looked in to this. As it turns out it is more of a language issue. In Dutch we only have 1 average, THE average. I understand that in English there is a group of values known as "averages". In Dutch we call these "central values". If you had studied Dutch, you'd know ;-)
Our perception is skew by the media which is influenced by politics... And vice-versa. Ence the problem is not the data, the problem is the way the World is presented to us.
What about people who know the area they came from better than the area in which they currently reside, or people who know an area relevant to their ethnic or religious culture better than they know their own residential areas?
How dangerous and missleading statistics can be, if not using it right or using it to lie. There are serious cases about statistics, like putting an innocent woman to jail because of "statistical proof" (which was wrong information).
You may not like the above illustration, but you have to admit that it's a true statistic, which then further suggests that it's all a load of bollocks.
Saudi figures may be somewhat skewed by how a high proportion of the residents are "guest workers" who aren't counted as really being there. "Officially".
I'm lost- why should I love statistics? I don't think he answered the question- he merely pointed out that people aren't good at guessing (several times). I do like statistics, 6-sigma process control, and such.
IMO people in London get generally more media airtime/representation than the rest of the UK. So I think that swings what we see as average. London is extreme.
I used to call Bingo at an assisted living facility where I worked. The game of Bingo is a statisticians nightmare. Watching the same number come up in 15 different games while another number never gets called, rows of numbers and sections where none get called, having 12 "B"s but only 2 "O"s. Random chance be damned, there are definitely patterns no matter how much you shuffle the balls.
Statistics is not a branch of mathematics as wikipedia and this guy say. Statistics is a science on its own, which makes use of mathematical tools to get its points across, just like physics does. Now, probability theory is a branch of math because it has been structured in such a way it is an axiomatic tree.
the very first presented statistic is very misleading. all the newly implemented measures didn't have time to take effect before the second survey was conducted, thus the survey did not measure the effectiveness of any of the measures, but of the education system 20+ years into the past..
This guy deserves massive respect, the way he put that together and the effort I saw was mad.
If one human on earth would be immortal. The average lifespan of everyone would be forever.
Unless you only count the ages of people when they die. Hmm... Maybe more complex than I thought.
That's why you should consider at median not mean(average).
If that was a pun towards the stupif believing in staristics, then it's a damn clever comment
You have read The Black Swan :D ?
That's an outlier though, they may not be representable for the whole population
Accordion to statistics, most people do not notice when you replace random words with musical instruments...
I really really really like your profile pic.
Yo I laughed out loud
I hate you. ❤️
@@jsal7666 why?
Whistleblower 🤣
Takeaways: 1) there is great misconception by the public 2) the disjoint between what people perceive and what is reality shows that statistics is a very important subject
This makes me feel so much better about having to learn Stats as part of a psychology course :) Helpful
lol absolutely
Hello, can you please tell me about your course?
why would you study a useless major 😭😭
@@xenolithhh I'm not sure what part of psychology you think is useless, but you're a fool for believing any of it is.
@@xenolithhh psychology isn't a useless major lol what makes you say that?
Watching this to stay motivated for my stats class
Loved the talk! I also noted that this was by far one of the most clean and well thought out presentations in a long time. (Clear, but well supporting slides, getting the message across, etc..)
I’ve never thought about any part of mathematics like Mr. Smith just did. “Statistics is the silence of us.”
Who else is watching this with their introduction to statistics college course lol
me...from Australia
@ayat5483 hahaha you freshman?
seeing this comment I made when I was a freshman three years ago hits with some weight 😂😂
@@ayat5483 South Texas, USA
Me right now lol
final lab of the course is to write a paper over this video☹
There is something wrong with the TED community. Even when a dude talks about an online thingy he made about statistics, the comments get political in a matter of seconds
Archibald Belanus That's because a majority of people don't have a high IQ so they look to argue right away instead of learning.
Learning? I thought TED is where self-aggrandized geniuses go to jerk themselves off.
Archibald Belanus what's wrong with that?
made*
Vaibhav Gupta
Jesus Christ this must be the 100th time I make that mistake and I still can't correct it !!
Just done the quiz for my area. Got 109%. Never knew I was so good with numbers ;-)
This video was very well informing and communicative. I greatly relate to this video and had taken away so much I really thank you for releasing his video and teaching me he importance, value and meaning of statistics. My favorite example ad eye-opening moment was the u16 video at 9:10 where the survey contents were described. Thank you again!!
4:36 lol "what could possibly be causing that misperception?" *ahem* media *ahem*
there are 10 kinds of people - those who understand binary and those who don't
vulcanfeline And those who didn't expect this to be a ternary joke.
subcomments made sure that he is not making any nonsense. and then i got the joke that i starting laughing in binary
Noice
brilliant
Studying for my Stats mock tomorrow... watching this because it's 'relevant' (yeah procrastination ok) and it's in my town too! What are the odds...
Do some statistics and find out what the odds are :P
Jesus this comment section is a cesspool
Great presentation!
As an individual who only then realized I was good at numbers AFTER I got out of highschool. I believe it to be an educational issue.
I have a degree in Math & Economics and I hated statistics in college, so much so I had to take it over. However, one of my favorite books in my 20's was a book on quantifying statistics in a meaningful way. Go figure.
can you suggedt me a book yo grow my interest in probability, statistics and data science ?
Please share the title of this book!
Whats the name of the book?
This didn't have much with people's ability to "understand and work with numbers", though, at least not as he presented it. People weren't wrong about the stats because they didn't understand the stats. They were wrong about the stats because... they didn't know them. They were just guessing based on observations they had made in every day life. That's not being bad at stats, that's lacking information or making poor observations.
I agree with you here. The talk is mislabeled. More accurate would be something like "How the average of peoples' uninformed guesses about things compare to undocumented surveys." There probably are several interesting things about that, but numeric literacy isn't one of them.
On the exact same page as you here. This has nothing to do with not being good at numbers but rather a social phenomenon called cultural relativism. In the examples early on in the presentation if the same question about how many people are muslim or how many people are obese were asked in each country, you'd get a different answer and it would be wrong unless you really are studying said field. Then, if the same question is asked within a subset of each one of those countries, then the answer would be different again. Unless this talk is getting at the subjectivity of statistics or estimating values, then I see where it's coming from but the label of the talk doesn't align with the content.
I've always loved statistics.
I'm totally inspired! Thank you for the presentation
In the Japanese survey, urban versus rural is a vague distinction. In the US, I once moved from New York City to Philadelphia, another large American city. My cousin, who lived in New York City his whole life, asked if you needed to boil the water out of the tap in order to drink it, apparently thinking that Philadelphia and Pennsylvania must be a back-woods area with unreliable public utilities. Some people in NYC tend to look at the densely populated areas of New Jersey (one of the most densely populated US states) as being "the countryside" and I think that a similar vague distinction between urban and rural may be true of the people who live in the larger cities of Japan.
I'm becoming a Statistician. You made me love it all over again.
was this posted to the TED channel by accident and not the TEDx channel?
Given the comments on this video you'd think this was RT's video.
Great talk!
I start to understand why ted blocks the comment section sommetimes
Cios ProductionsWhy Ted does?
3:41 Statistics comes from the German word 'stadt" which means not "state" or "community" in English but rather "city". It refers to the data taking of data about city populations in Germany.
It's originally latin.
@@NeurosesGamer If so, please provide the etymology.
@@chacmool2581 You can't Google?
@@NeurosesGamer You asserted something, it is not up to me to verify it or prove it. It is incumbent on you, not me.
@@chacmool2581 it's not like your comment here is peer reviewed and verified either. just Google it and stop being weird or don't 😂
Delightful is exactly the right word; lovely talk! Alan, thank you for delivering.
1- 3:20
2- 6:28
3- 7:05
Thank you - inspiring. Goes to show, anyone can do anything, if they want to and if they find it has a purpose in their lives and in the lives of others
A wonderful speech!
Succinct but unforgettable!
this was great!!! ive been avoiding starting my statistics homework but this is encouraging me to do it! heh
Wow. Great talk.
Beautifully explained
Great presentation.
The first few stats in the lecture, where were their median counterparts? He said they were averages, and those things can be skewed. I'm curious to see what those graphs would tell
I am studying Geoinformatics but I've never been a fan of statistics. This might help me get started, thanks!
Statistics give life to numbers and meaning to life
2:58 is this why statistics is my favorite part of math??
This was very refreshing!!
I was on holiday in a shopping mall in Denver and was asked if I would like to answer a few statistical questions? My answer was no thank you, can't be bothered, but more importantly, as an English tourist, my knowledge of American products and services is negligible.
Doesn't matter, replied the beautiful young lady with the big smile and the pen, you get 10 dollars and it takes about 10 minutes. So I came away 10 dollars richer and the interviewer added one more successful set of statistics to her tally that day.
Alan Smith describes statistics as a Science. 'The 'Science' of dealing with data' is what he calls it, and attempts to give it some credibility by aligning it with Mathematics.
It mostly depends what you ask, and who you choose to ask, which makes it about as credible as astrology is to an astronomer.
Come to think of it your daily Horoscope is probably more scientific.
Must be a rich interviewer 😱
I am watching this to help motivate me to study for my statistics class.
Great talk, thanks.
Hands down. Great spokesmen! But I still hate stats!! :)
1:45 = The US is #1 yet again!
JamesThomas *facepalm
It’s growing on me! I really like it!
Inspirational. Stays was my least favorite class in my entire math degree. Bit now relearning it for fun.
Thank you.
Please try to give subtitles
feeling need to curiousity is necessity of life!
amazing, very inspiring talk!
Such an insightful talk. Thank you :)
Excellent presentaion respected sir. Recive ⚘
Great fun, thanks.
Great talk. What program is used to show the percentage graphic?
i am studying statistics. hoping this video will give me the motivation to go on and finish this degree
oh and it did
Same. And now I'm depressed from the idea I could fail.
Khan Academy. I got more out of the 60-something lessons I viewed on Statistics than anything I got out of my professor's lectures and textbook.
Same. Cheers !
Using ted app in 2 hour,and that is very good
1:56 First thing you need to do when presenting graphs is to label the axes. What is the Y axis on that graph? Percentage of population or Millions?
Perfect! going to send this to my A level statisticians :D
Statistics play a pivotal role and influence a lot for everyone.
Only fools, there's of us realize fake experts in the news have zero basis In reality. Statistics is not causation.
This was a good one.
I relate to this on a whole different level
Statistics is not about uncertainty- In fact what most of the people fail to understand is that Statistics and Probability give us the 'MEASURE' of uncertainty, and hence giving a MEASURE of certainty. It quantifies the level of certainty and hesnce gives us a measure. It is one of the most important forms of Applied Mathematics.
Especially useful in this age of data and artificial intelligence. #Beuatiful#MathematicsandStatistics
Great presentation 😇
It's wonderful!!!
I learned that the average statistician doesn't know the difference between average and median ;-) (9:25). Then again I'm from the Netherlands.
I noticed this as well. It was rather distracting.
Also he kept talking about variance in a very ambiguous way
Median is an average, friend. If you had studied Statistics, you'd know.
Laura Lexi ? Median is the middle number of the data, and average is add all data together rand divided the number of data it has. I believe that’s how you should calculate since middle school? Or is it different in statistics?
@@barneyy6942 Hi Laura, I looked in to this. As it turns out it is more of a language issue. In Dutch we only have 1 average, THE average. I understand that in English there is a group of values known as "averages". In Dutch we call these "central values". If you had studied Dutch, you'd know ;-)
Is the site back up? If so, can anyone link it? Thanks😄
Great vid!
Proud being a Korean:)
I JUST watched a Ted talk in my stats class today
Our perception is skew by the media which is influenced by politics... And vice-versa. Ence the problem is not the data, the problem is the way the World is presented to us.
I want to replicate that gamification of data in my own country! Statistics is definitely fascinating
Good presentation, thank you. If you have suggestions for me on other Ted Talks on subjects in the same area, could you please comment under this .
What's the software used for the creation of the quiz? it looks amazing. Does anyone know the name of it?
'Love' Statistics? How about UNDERSTANDING and ACCURATELY applying Statistics instead?
What about people who know the area they came from better than the area in which they currently reside, or people who know an area relevant to their ethnic or religious culture better than they know their own residential areas?
What possibly could I write an article on statistics? I got this assignment and I'm struggling with the topic
How dangerous and missleading statistics can be, if not using it right or using it to lie. There are serious cases about statistics, like putting an innocent woman to jail because of "statistical proof" (which was wrong information).
Interesting . Thanks.
This video is not about Statistics. It's about data collected and the public's ignorance.
My favorite illustration of a misuse of statistics: The average person has (approx.) one testicle.
You may not like the above illustration, but you have to admit that it's a true statistic, which then further suggests that it's all a load of bollocks.
Statistics only work when you didn't set out to prove your conclusion.
I like that people started sending it to their politicians.
Wait... *adjusts glasses* this guy isn't Vsauce!
your right, it is Vsauce
Had the same thing happening to me
Saudi figures may be somewhat skewed by how a high proportion of the residents are "guest workers" who aren't counted as really being there. "Officially".
My Stats Dont Lie
Shakira
Yet another reason to move to Netherlands.
if people with high numeracy move to the netherlands than the problem will be exacerbated.
let's see how high we can get the innumerate percentage >:)
Unfortunately, the quizz is not available for the Arabic world
I'm lost- why should I love statistics? I don't think he answered the question- he merely pointed out that people aren't good at guessing (several times). I do like statistics, 6-sigma process control, and such.
Awesome!
Does anyone else get static at 7:20 and through the video?
2:01 Which Korea are you referring to?
Yeah new lesson i have learned, thanks
IMO people in London get generally more media airtime/representation than the rest of the UK. So I think that swings what we see as average. London is extreme.
I used to call Bingo at an assisted living facility where I worked. The game of Bingo is a statisticians nightmare. Watching the same number come up in 15 different games while another number never gets called, rows of numbers and sections where none get called, having 12 "B"s but only 2 "O"s. Random chance be damned, there are definitely patterns no matter how much you shuffle the balls.
Statistics is not a branch of mathematics as wikipedia and this guy say. Statistics is a science on its own, which makes use of mathematical tools to get its points across, just like physics does. Now, probability theory is a branch of math because it has been structured in such a way it is an axiomatic tree.
the account for 5/100 but make trouble for 25/100. Pretty straightforward
the very first presented statistic is very misleading. all the newly implemented measures didn't have time to take effect before the second survey was conducted, thus the survey did not measure the effectiveness of any of the measures, but of the education system 20+ years into the past..
Whom is this increased his/her interest in statistics?
why do we need to know the percentage of households with mortgage? is that really matter?