Science Memes

11278 readers

3581 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

1148

Percentages (mander.xyz)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

123 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 22 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I work in a place full of statisticians, and we've had to unfortunately have numerous conversations with some of them about the difference between "a decrease" and "a decrease in the rate." Apparently "it's increasing slower" isn't clear enough for some.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

Maybe I'm understanding wrong but a decrease in the rate would be the derivative of a decrease. Aka the slope of the line. So if you are decreasing at -x. Rate of decrease is -1.

Unless I follow your wording incorrectly. Obviously it isn't always so nice of a function in real stats. Is that what they are missing?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

I think it's more y=5x and then y=3x, so you're still increasing, but the rate of increase has decreased. Versus y=-x where the function is now decreasing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

This is exactly the issue that happens. They write things out narratively like a decrease happened, which would cause some panic in certain groups we work with, and then they would argue when we requested they fix it to represent a decrease in the rate of increase, or a slower/lower increase than prior, or however they wanna say it. But it certainly didn't decrease.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

So the derivative of the derivative, lol. It goes all the way down in math, physics though, that guys a jerk. (Sorry for the bad joke)