Memes

And stats really should be a mainline math class in high school. It comes up in so many places, and is far too often simplified away into a binary black & white choice.

Any time something happens that was predicted to be less than 50% likely, people lose their shit. For instance, when it unexpectedly rains or the wrong person wins an election.

But it’s not even being able to run the numbers or understanding statistical significance. It’s much more basic, just understanding that probabilities and uncertainty exist and are everywhere. My favorite example is when going to the doctor. They explain that whatever you have is probably X or Y, with a small chance of Z, but Y has been going around a lot and is easy to treat, so let’s try medication A for it. Then when that gets reported to friends and family afterwards, it’s “she said I have Y and I need A to fix it.”