this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As a biochemist who is better at stats than the average biochemist (which is concerning, because I'm not that great), I greatly appreciate statisticians telling us off when we're fools.

[–] Shiggles 19 points 10 months ago

The second most useful thing I learned from statistics courses was the statistics. The first was just how terrible most people are in their application.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Statistitians are good people, though I need more data points to say anything conclusively

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Just to point out, but you need to make sure your data is unbiased much more than you need a lot of points.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Can you at least say how your prior belief distribution has shifted or been reaffirmed given the observed data points?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

That would be pretty Bayesed

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"Trust in numbers" was an eye opening book I had to read for a university course.

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691208411/trust-in-numbers

The idea that "It's difficult to get numbers to tell you the truth" despite how people tend to think hard data is not falsifiable - was my main take.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

For a really good riff on this same idea, I like "How to Lie With Statistics" by Darrell Huff, and it's all illustrated!

Great, easy to understand breakdown of how statistics can be manipulated.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

I honestly think that book should be required high school reading.