This blog may help people explore some of the 'hidden' issues involved in certain media treatments of environmental and scientific issues. Using personal digital images, it's also intended to emphasise seasonal (and other) changes in natural history of the Swansea (South Wales) area. The material should help participants in field-based modules and people generally interested in the natural world. The views are wholly those of the author.
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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