Review on the Ted Talk- 3 ways to spot a bad statistic

1. REVIEW ON THE TED TALK-
3 WAYS TO
SPOT A BAD
STATISTIC
BY- MONA CHALABI

2. “ Sometimes it's hard to know what statistics are
worthy of trust. But we shouldn't count out stats
altogether. Instead, we should learn to look behind
them. ”
In this delightful, hilarious talk, data journalist
Mona Chalabi shares handy tips to help question,
interpret and truly understand what the numbers
are saying.

4. Statistics might make you skeptical. And when it comes to
numbers, especially now, you should be skeptical . But you
should also be able to tell which numbers are reliable and
which ones aren't.
What's different now is people are questioning statistics
like , “ The US unemployment rate is five percent." What
makes this claim different is it doesn't come from a private
company, it comes from the government.

5. THREE QUESTIONS THAT
WILL HELP YOU BE ABLE
TO SPOT SOME BAD
STATISTICS.

6. 1) CAN YOU SEE UNCERTAINTY?
One of things that's really changed people's relationship
with numbers, and even their trust in the media, has
been the use of political polls.
A lot of data visualizations will overstate certainty, and it
works -- these charts can numb our brains to
criticism. When you hear a statistic, you might feel
skeptical. As soon as it's buried in a chart, it feels like
some kind of objective science, and it's not.

7. EXAMPLES

8. 2) CAN I SEE MYSELF IN THE DATA?
This question is also about averages in a way, because
part of the reason why people are so frustrated with
these national statistics, is they don't really tell the story
of who's winning and who's losing from national
policy. It's easy to understand why people are frustrated
with global averages when they don't match up with
their personal experiences.

9. 3) HOW WAS THE DATA COLLECTED?

10. A data collection plan like this should be demanded
for by the managers as well as concerned associates.
This makes the flow systematic and we are
acquainted with the source of the data as well as
procedure followed to procure this data.
These aspects turn out to be useful consideration
before using the statistical data for making decisions.

11. MANAGERIAL ASPECT

12. A manager needs to take into account
misleading/false/bad statistics in order to make
accurate and better decisions.
Decisions made with bad/inaccurate statistics into
consideration may drastically hamper the company’s
turnover in the long run.
On identifying these, efforts should be made to
procure the appropriate statistics before making the
decisions.

14. If you want to test a statistic that comes from a private
company, you can buy the face cream for you and a bunch
of friends, test it out, if it doesn't work, you can say the
numbers were wrong. But how do you question
government statistics? You just keep checking
everything. Find out how they collected the numbers. Find
out if you're seeing everything on the chart you need to
see. But don't give up on the numbers altogether, because if
you do, we'll be making public policy decisions in the
dark, using nothing but private interests to guide us.

15. BY- TANAY KARNIK