Wednesday, 4 November 2020

Will Education Change Bias?

I have always been a firm believer in education but this belief is slipping away as I enter fogeydom. I read, with interest, the opinion piece by Paul Goodwin on simple checks that one can do to distinguish honest statistics from falsehoods (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/31/think-statistically-truth-falsehood). The examples are well-chosen and the tests, both simple and appropriate, but I really don't believe anymore that getting the general public to 'learn to think statistically' will actually achieve much. I would love to be proved wrong but most people don't appear remotely interested in testing the verity of statistical claims directed at them from a variety of sources. They seem to believe what they want to believe. Confirmation bias rules:OK?
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