Easy to Lie
The Solutions Lyrics

We have lyrics for 'Easy to Lie' by these artists:

Masters Apprentices Wake up to yourself before you die The truth is hard…
Night Drive Taking our time, getting to nowhere Things in our past can't…
The Masters Apprentices Wake up to yourself before you die The truth is hard…

We have lyrics for these tracks by The Solutions:

'Baby' Ah ah ah Star solution on this one Oya my baby…
Black Night 밤 아주 까맣던 밤 너와 내가 마주했던 밤 한참 아무런 말 없이 서로의…
Blessed In the fall and the return of winter Your witches fly…
Dance With Me Why don't you dance with me? Day goes on The weekend comes…

Flex Ooh Ooh Ooh Hoo ooh, hoo ooh, hoo ooh hoo ooh So many…
Hard It's a hard way to learn. Drown in despair as your…
I Been That I always talk about the weight of situations. I never…
I Run to You you kiss my lips i am fall again another chance to…
In the Mix Adam and Eve original sin conceived, They turned away, and t…
Loading Say that you want to come back to me Then I…
Love You Dear you kiss my lips i am fall again another chance to…
MOOD FOR LOVE 그대의 입술에 내려앉은 새하얀 꽃잎에 눈길이 머물고 떨리듯 새어나온 숨결 꿈결이 되어 속삭여줘요 까만 눈동…
My Youth 가만히 누워 바보처럼 물어 저무는 해야 난 무얼 해야 우리 사랑은 짧고 또 행복은 멀고 창밖에…
Oceania Days getting hot Melting all we have got today Embers around…
RUN I will run for life I will run for life How many…
Sounds Of The Universe Can you hear sounds of the universe When you watch upside…
That's That Work AHHH Talk that shit You ain't no Crip don't walk like…
Ticket to the Moon Starry night Sinbihan bam gonggiga Naui mameul heundeulgo Me…
Tonight Stars are shining, oh so bright They don't compare, to your…
When? You can change your clothing, you can change your hair, And…
Who Is U There's no room at the inn The bar is full and…

Your One no I don't want to say good bye but I have…

The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos

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Most interesting comments from YouTube:

ANIKHTOS

5y↑12

@AnkhArcRod
sorry mate but the wording is plain wrong
"whatever story you want to tell"
no mate you cna nto use the math to say that blanc is white and white is black you simpel can not.

but if the people do not know the numbers and the precise wording then people will assume something different because they consider the number represent something that it is not

thats not a fault of statistic or that statistic said that to begin with

example is the 100% and the 5% raise the wording is not the exact same its tiny different
so you know how to use that number they give you since they are 2 different things
the 100% is the rate of measurement while the 5% is the net increment.

when you are given that the wording is slight different so you can say what it is and use them properly.

now if the for the people the rate of changing something and the actual speed is the sam eis ther problem

my math professor said this word of wisdom
you think you do nto need math, what you teach today you will never use, but these numbers will be used in your every day life and because you will be unabme to understand what they represent they will maniip[ulate to do what ever they want.

because he have books written , we teach something to people it does not mean that all people will understand it and comprehend it
geee if that was truw 100% of the population will be scientist with doctor level and we will be going in another galaxy to settle down by now.

and statistic is easy and real straight forward to do it
if you want real massacre go is probabilities
the majority of the problems are counter intuitive and many times to sovle them and be sure that its the correct one
we end up brute force the problem

Cor97

2y↑19

Your example with the conviction in a murder case reminds me of a case in 2003 in The Netherlands, also including a professor in statistics.

Here a nurse was sentenced for multiples murders. Luckily for her there were some scientists and friends who did not believe in her guilt. After 7 years in prison these people managed to reopen the case and proved the professor and many others to be completely wrong. The nurse got released, but tremendous harm was done. With regard to the statistics, the professor did not understand or somehow failed to apply the Bayes Theorem, probably studied bij many high school and college students. This theorem can be stated as P(A|B)=P(B|A)P(A)/P(B). In words: One wants to know the chance that given someone has this particular set of characteristics (B), he or she is the murderer (P(A|B). But actually one believes to know P(B|A). According to this well known theorem, this chance that one seeks is the same as the chance that someone has this characteristics, given that he or she is the murderer, times the chance that someone is a murderer divided by the chance that someone happens to have this particular set of characterictics.

Yes, the chance that someone has this particular set of characteristics is very small. But also, the chance someone is a murderer is also very small! The absurdity of the conclusion of the 'statistical analysis' would have become immediately clear if the police had not found 1 but 3 candidates with these characteristics. Unfortunately in these cases, one usually stops searching for more 'murderers' as soon one believes one has found one.

If in the case of the Dutch nurse the professor had done his calculations correctly the chance would not have been 1 in so many millions but more like 1 in 6.

In the dutch case, the nurse was eventually set free in 2014, her story ended up in a book and a very intens and a humbling kind of movie was made out of her story.

RedFluxBlueDawn

44w↑2

The misleading numbers are generally actually just withholding information so you can't see the full picture.
Depending on the situation (if you're being honest that is) you have to display the relevant information, but again, most information is given to control people or atleast their beheaviour, so I get it that details are purposely withheld.

In the 100% vs small% cases, you either want to scare or sooth people (even people who understand the concept won't have access to the actual figures, so they don't know how good or bad the actual situation is).

In the case of commercial, I actually tend to ignore most because they mostly annoy me. Same with coupons, what use are cheaper or free items if I have to buy something I previously didn't care about owning or using.
When I go to a store, I don't select by brand, just whatever tasted best or worked the longest whenever I had any choice and decided to try it if I wasn't happy with my regular item.

And somehow a lot of things I prefer in a store either got withdrawn from sales after a while, or virtually never show up on commercials or in coupon form (I do check it from time to time just in case there is anything I actually need or use).

VictorHCG

2y↑1

I had pneumonia during the covid outbreak.

At the hospital, a x-ray showed that I had 1% of lung failure, which was considered completely irrelevant.

1 week later, I repeated the exam and it showed an increase to 5% , which was still clinically irrelevant.

And still, my father insisted and said " well, this is a 500% increase to me".

Well, he's not wrong...

All comments from YouTube:

Zach Star

5y↑7.9K

Well....we'll see what you guys think of this one. I know it's a little different from usual but once I read about a few of these stories I had to make a video about the topic. Hope you guys enjoy! Next video will be about the mathematics of crime and some of the things seen in the show 'Numb3rs'.

1337master

5y↑118

Loved the video. I also liked Numb3rs and cannot wait to see what you do with it.
Rossmo's Formula blew my mind

Edit: loved how you perfectly generalized people on the interwebs

Mike Oxolong

5y↑36

It was interesting, I like these videos.

Khoa Vo

5y↑38

It was a spectacular video. Thanks a lot for those crime stories.

Steven Tran

5y↑12

MajorPrep do videos on architecture and architectural engineering

Brave Dom

5y↑20

Would you consider doing a video on game theory?

246 More Replies...

GermanSniper

3y↑35.4K

We interviewed 1000 people that have played russian roulette before. 100% of them survived the game. Conclusion: Russian roulette is completely safe to play.

5eChangeling

3y↑3.9K

1000 Jewish people were interviewed after being released from concentration camps. You know what, I won't go there.

Boom Bam

3y↑522

yes , everyone survived.... with an unloaded revolver.

Uploader Of Many Things

3y↑1.6K

@Boom Bam no no haha the only way someone could be interviewed after playing Russian Roulette was if they survived. It is impossible to interview people who have played Russian Roulette and died because of it, so of course any such interviewing would yield a 100% survival rate.

Doglover 33

3y↑585

@Uploader Of Many Things I’m pretty sure that’s the point of the original comment

jbjefe

3y↑1K

This one is called survivor's bias. There's a good example of the Brits determining which parts of a fighter plane to add armor to, and they used the planes that returned to make the decision.

319 More Replies...

Walter Casey

2y↑3.1K

I had an Electrical Engineering professor who said that “graphs with suppressed zeros should be made illegal.”
You have shown why professor Crosno was correct,👍

heath barz

2y↑71

my temptation is to say “absolutely yes” but i think we might be better off trying to explain this phenomenon to as many people as possible because the people who are committed to lying might find a way around it if we make it illegal lol

Andres

2y↑44

Man I teach Excel. And for some reason Excel automatically sets other number different than zero in bar charts. The user has to perform some extra steps just to make the bar chart look like a real comparison.

A guy on the internet

2y↑7

I think it was just cause he was too old to deal with that crap

Stephen Post

2y↑117

It depends SOOO much on context, though. If you were showing a graph of a person’s body temperature with vs without medication, starting the graph at 0 would make no sense because you would barely be able to tell a difference of 4 degrees, even though that can mean the difference between a mild fever and someone needing hospitalization.

Walter Casey

2y↑16

@Stephen Post excellent point. 👍👍

18 More Replies...

Tom Wilson

1y↑2.5K

I read one on which countries had the largest increase in murder rates. New Zealand had an increase of 300 percent , however if you looked at the actual numbers they went from one murder in a year to 3 . I think I would be willing to take my chances

Junk Bond

1y↑76

That's per 100k population. To put it in perspective, for that equivalent year, that's a 52% chance of being killed compared to living in USA. However, two years prior, there was only a 13% chance relative to USA, with a roughly 1/5 chance over the past 10 years. The reason I point out USA is all the gun-related deaths vs. NZ which has much stricter firearms laws.

However you look at 2.6 vs 5.1 (rounded) / 100k being high or low, it's interesting how many people say NZ is so safe and USA is dangerous -- future years will determine if NZ retraces lower.

nccamsc

1y↑194

Going from 1 to 3 is 200% increase, not 300%

Usopper

1y↑102

@nccamsc Lol again shows how unintuitive statistics can be

James Harvey

1y↑2

That's why you measured it per capita....

troglodyt1

1y↑81

@Junk Bond According to wikipedia New Zealand had 126 cases of intentional homicide in 2019, a rate of 2.6/100k. During the Christchurch mosque shooting that year 51 people were killed, i.e. nearly half of all intentional homicide victims in 2019 thereby close to doubling the rate per 100k.

The 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas killed 61 people. With total intentional homicide victims north of 20000 that year this event didn't have any impact on the rate per 100k for the US.

Context is key...

19 More Replies...

CactusBoi

1y↑1.6K

I remember that I had a math exam where one of the tasks was to manipulate a diagramm to make one computer company look better than the other.

yeckiLP

1y↑237

that is a really cool question, as it really drills home how unreliable statistics are, if you yourself can abuse it.

Diffuse

1y↑39

There's a cool example of this in the Simpsons Paradox, which can be used to fudge results for drug trials to the untrained eye.

Pow the Potato

1y↑91

@yeckiLP in Germany we say "vertraue nie einer Statistik die du nicht selbst gefälscht hast", basically "never trust statistics you yourself didn't manipulate"

bruh

1y↑8

That’s sound so cool

could you share it or just describe the question?

CactusBoi

1y↑8

@bruh That was like 5 years ago, all I've written everything I remember about it in the original comment

8 More Replies...

Troy Davenport

1y↑1.4K

7:00 "Dropout rates double, from 5% to 10%" is how I'd frame this data.

Toby

1y↑322

Yeah but logic doesn't get ad revenue

Centre Piece Reece

1y↑48

@Toby based

GOOD GOOD

1y↑32

...If media was honest.... FACEPALM CITY this is why I DON"T use FB....and other sites....yeah I know YT is not Immune to this tactic . . .....
Fun Fact '100% of People that commented on this video watch YouTube at some point' lol

Randy Childers

1y↑2

But politicians, and their advisors, can't use that information to improve their election, or re-election for that matter, chances

Ajbcool

1y↑16

Downside is people may stop paying attention after "double"

12 More Replies...

T Eugene

1y↑450

the story of the mother losing her children and being convicted with stats really hit me... like deeply.

MrLantan

48w↑49

The conviction was later overturned. On the second appeal it was shown the statistics from Dr. Meadow were incorrect and cases like that happen much more frequently than suggested by the figure (1 in 73mil).

Yassein Dahshan

47w↑21

Such is life my friend. Sometimes the whole world is against you even though you haven't done anything. Just remember that when you are judging other people in the future. Never think that there is no way you are wrong.

Janmejay Barve

46w↑6

@MrLantan I remember reading about this, but I think the reason it was overturned was because as medical science advanced, they found some genetic reason for the deaths.

Dark Pink Girl

46w↑3

yeah it's super messed up...

6 More Replies...

DigitalRanger

3y↑3.3K

I took a statistics class in college. The textbook was literally called How To Lie With Statistics.

davkrod

3y↑129

Liars can figure, and figures can lie. 😷🤧🙃😁

Cynical Old Dwarf

3y↑25

@Anik Samiur Rahman Was that the inspiration for the movie "Thank You For Smoking" or are the two unrelated?

Anik Samiur Rahman

3y↑8

@Cynical Old Dwarf I haven't seen the movie. But sounds like it's a goon one. I'll look into it and let u know.

NightShiftBear01

3y↑27

Bill gates has that same book.

25 More Replies...

karyoplasma

43w↑11

The dog/animal with 4 legs explanation is amazing. It captures the essence of the fallacy so well and packs it into a tangible example.

Frank Boston

1y↑94

I feel enlightened. I'm not stupid by any means, but I obviously lacked basically all sense of statistics. It's unfortunate I wasn't ever introduced to the subject throughout my schooling. I feel like this video will make me think so much more than I have been. And... knowledge is power. Thanks, so much.

Mikael Virji

43w↑2

I feel like statistics should be a required class, over something like trigonometry. You’re not using that in life unless you’re in a math heavy field, but statistics are everywhere

1 More Replies...

Brian Pompei

44w↑15

Statistical probability should never be allowed in court. It has no bearing on anyone’s guilt or innocence. That is why we use witnesses or physical evidence. Great job my hillbilly friend.

danyilii

42w↑1

Witnesses aren't the most trustworthy source either

Brian Pompei

42w

@danyilii But they can be cross examined to see if their story holds up.

Gerald Sahd

2y↑315

During the last pandemic, health officials would and media would report a 100% increase in cases which was a head scratcher because it was in the middle of the summer. A closer look showed the cases had risen from 6 to 12.

Petitio Principii

1y↑3

SARS-2 has no seasonal pattern, AFAIK. The relative lack of preceding immunity and its fastly evolving antigenic drift possibly compensate or confound any seasonal pattern that would be more inherent to epidemics of physically similar pathogens.

MomPickMeUpImScared

48w↑6

@Petitio Principii It's obviously has a seasonal patters, hence why cases dropped massively ever time summer time came around (and of course jumped at the same time in the opposite hemisphere).

Jan Lukas

47w↑4

@Petitio PrincipiiSARS-2 has seasonal patterns where I live: when the people stay inside during the winter it spreads more while when being outside during summer it spreads less

2 More Replies...

Auroral Animations

1y↑44

THIS is why studying math is so important! Makes me want to sign up for a statistics course...

TankMcHavoc Productions

3y↑6.2K

I remember my algebra teacher telling us about this, saying that statistics show people with bigger feet are better at math. None of us could have guessed that the statistic studied all ages, so it included babies and toddlers.

Trevor

3y↑439

Damn, that's smart

lotus wolf

3y↑107

Men usually are taller than women so they have bigger feet, does that mean men are better at math them women

Trevor

3y↑255

@lotus wolf I mean statistically, guys are better at math, so I mean ig it does.

lotus wolf

3y↑34

@Trevor women are more calculative though

None Last

3y↑216

That's why in my AP stats class my teacher made it a huge deal to put the context, the group we where studying, any stratification, the way we got the data, any sort of bias that could came up, and error we couldn't account for. Stats are so easily capable to be miscommunicated even if you meant well. Someone could take a number you put out there in good intention and use it to push an agenda while ignoring key aspects of the stat. A stat isn't just the probability, it's the context and situation it was taken with.

66 More Replies...

Ximena Benitez

1y↑53

If only my statistics professor taught like this, maybe I would have understood more. He always said something about "Only work with the data you are given", which works for school, but is obviously flawed in the real world (like in all of these examples)

Franck Sala

2y↑36

I love this, thanks Zach, thank you. I try to instil a level of critical thinking in my life and not be fooled by statistics, probably fail a lot. I really like the way you did the video and wish more people would watch it and maybe come to their senses a bit more. We are all imperfect beings, able to be misled and/or biased one way or the other, the trick seems to be to not get emotionally caught up in it but rather to dig a little deeper and maybe more importantly engage what seems to me dormant in many, empathy and love. Keep up the great work!

Steven Cook

2y↑66

Spot on. I had to remove 0 data points from a chart my boss asked me to. When doing so I notice the trend line went towards a more favored outcome. I brought this to his attention and he said to just do it. I was working as a planner but this was my first hand experience of data minipulation. Even removing 0 values from a data set can throw it way off. Thanks for posting this. :)

KingPatty

2y↑25

I take statistics classes in High School cause practical research is part of our curriculum and also in College as an economics major. What I learned is that it makes me develop more trust issues on data analytics being presented by the mainstream media especially during the pandemic.

Chrrmin

1y↑15

Thank you for this. I see statistical illiteracy and misrepresentation way too often

Samsul Hoque

5y↑3.7K

Scariest thing about statistics is that the data doesn't have to be faked in order to tell whatever story you want to tell.

AnkhArcRod

5y↑338

@ANIKHTOS That is rather harsh as OP did not say that statistics lie. He, in fact, stated that any story you want can be weaved by using the same data. You just decided to take the moral high ground when OP's claim was completely valid. I think everyone understands that statistics by itself is not the evil here. It is willful or unwitting use of incorrect or partial statistics that can potentially cause lot of harm.

ANIKHTOS

5y↑12

HiArashi13

5y↑94

@ANIKHTOS And despite that, OP has over 9000% more likes than yours. Where does that put you?

General Harness

5y↑53

@ANIKHTOS The OP of this thread basically said the same thing this video said. It is EASY to use statiscs to form a story that you want to happen, or you can use data to grant the impression you want by with holding context. Yes if you do not understand the data your more likely to belief it but if I said out of 1000 people who applied to a job with 400 openings 0% percent of women who applied where accepted. Its very easy to understand no women where given a job. This is the sort of situation that was talked about its miss leading and with holding info. If I told you 1000 people applied to become a male stripper and 1 women applied who did not get the job is very different intent of presentation to 100% of the women who applied did not get the job.

I hate % with a passion its easy to mislead as a 100% increase is alarming but you can also say there was a 5% increase for the same data. I mean you can even use that term a 100% increase if the sample size simply decrease. It depends if you look at all the data or just the increase. Look at house prices in NZ and you will see a misrepresentation of what they are increasing by as its better to use the 5% but if you want to create a panic or a rush to do something use the 100%.

118 More Replies...

justnTime077

1y↑17

Not only are you the master of 90’s cable quality YouTube comedy gold, but you’re like the cool math teacher in the 90s that actually gets me to be enthused in stat.

SerenityValley9

1y↑9

The really sad thing is not just how easy it is to deceive other people using statistics, it's also how easy people unintentionally deceive themselves using statistics.

Cor97

2y↑19

Subaru

2y↑28

I caught the issue with the purse snatcher story because I heard about the woman who was wrongly convicted of killing her children before so I had a better idea what to look out for. I don't have a very good understanding of math but when I hear someone use a stat for evidence I listen VERY carefully to it's wording.

And yes, I wrote this before finishing your video.

Subaru

2y↑4

It amazes me how many people fall for the laziest of tricks when a statistic is involved. A lot of these are the equivalent of that one kid that always claims he is "not technically lying". There is a reason YouTube immediately started recommending me a video titled "DoubleSpeak, How to Lie without Lying" after watching this video.

Petitio Principii

1y↑3

@Subaru sometimes people fall even for things that barely are "tricks." In one hand, "correlation doesn't equal causation" is pretty much a cliche, like one of the first phrases people start to throw around to sound smarter when discussing some topic, but so fundamental that doesn't really impress anyone... and still, an impressive amount of people who seem normal or even smarter than average, end up making some of the most gross conflations of causation/correlation, at least selectively.

Broom

1y↑192

6:38 One is in percent, the other in percentage points. Thought you would include that in the video. Because yes, not many people know the difference.

Hi Enable

I don't get it. Can you explain pls?

Broom

1y↑5

@Hi Enable A difference between percentages is called percentage points. An invaluable concept if taking statistics serious.

Megan Viterkey

1y↑2

Thanks for saying this ! I didn't know the difference and wanted to what was it :)

Joe P

1y↑14

@Hi Enable

Percentage increase is based on what the value originally was and percentage points is based on how many percents was added. Let's say something went from 20% to 30%

That's a 50% increase from where it was, and it went up by 10 percentage points.

Hope that helps!

Sossololpipi

1y↑1

you could just say difference in percentage

ChillPlate

5y↑29.1K

If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.

Stefán Hawka, HVAC Tech

5y↑849

Woah. Dark way of saying it, but I see you

Claudio Maia Santos

5y↑504

@Stefán Hawka, HVAC Tech perfect!
I'm "stealing" this quote, but I'll use in portuguese!

Gief

5y↑139

I might use this haha, brilliant phrase

Henrik F

5y↑57

@Claudio Maia Santos How do you say it in portuguese?

manictiger

5y↑129

I found it disconcerting that I couldn't find the median life expectancy for most countries. Mean is very unreliable. It can be warped with outliers and noise. Median is far more reliable.

So when trying to compare the U.S. to Japan, I only found that the U.S. median life expectancy is 84.5. I have no idea what Japan's is.

129 More Replies...

Azzajay Brah

1y↑3

This is a great video. Depending on the intelligence or education of your audience, you’re going to get vastly different answers. That in itself just shows how important communication is when delivering statistics, because if your data is communicated towards the lowest common denominator, then you should simplify the statistics and state it in the easiest way to understand, not the most accurate number itself.

Richard

2y↑20

I fear that those that NEED to understand this, won't take the time watch it.
Thank you for the video.

J Halcyon

2y↑12

I mailed a survey out to my town asking whether the recipient loved taking surveys or always threw them away. I got 500 responses back that showed 99.6% of my town loves surveys! I'm going to send more out next week.

Pleoryo

2y↑12

Just a thought- saying that 1 in 7000 women with blood clots became 2 in 7000 is technically double but still a small amount, it looks less because you’ve changed the smaller number. If you said 1 in 7000 became 1 in 3500, that instantly seems worse even though it’s the same thing

Erik Schmidt

2y↑12

this is actually a really important topic. Thank you for spreading awareness!

Daily Dose of Opposite

How to be Ben Shapiro aka 1 statistic man

Captain Greenhat

3y↑2.3K

I have a degree in statistics. You did a very good job explaining these nuisances and yet this is still only scratching the surface of how wonky and manipulative statistical techniques can be.

Daniel Resh Enterprises

2y↑51

I don't have your credentials, but I do have 6 undergraduate and 6 graduate credits in statistics. I agree with you that David did a good job but there are so many other ways people lie with statistics. One of the big ones is when a single study comes out to prove a point and it's taken as gospel. Most people aren't aware of the need for an independently replicated study that produces the same results, they just assume the solo study is valid.

David Lemkuil

2y↑23

@Daniel Resh Enterprises well said. I agree 100% with the notion that one study without peer review is opinion, not science. The great thing about science is that findings are open to be replicated and if there are different results, we can all learn why. The best question and, in my opinion, the beginning and demise of our mortal selves, starts and ends, with the question, "WHY?".

David Lemkuil

2y↑11

@M M that is a very good point. This is where intellectualism and understanding of where the "peer review"originated from, comes into play. I preached to my son constantly, who recently turned 18 years of age, that the device that is in his pocket has unlimited knowledge. Back in my day we had to consult the encyclopedia Britannica. It is much easier today to learn about something, anything, that we don't already know.

Carl H - The Hermit With Wi-Fi

2y↑2

@David Lemkuil DING!

23 More Replies...

MrProy33

47w↑2

I used to teach this material in one of my college classes. Glad to see people are still recognizing how important this early form of "targeted marketing" was to the future of internet ads.

Dr Zoidberg

2y↑5

It’s unfortunate I can’t thumbs up more than once to help skew the statistics on how important it is for more of the general public to have a grasp on this subject.
This is the kind of stuff that needs to be taught to kids in high school

TooLittleTooLate

1y↑30

My #1 all-time favorite example of lying with statistics is the “Marijuana is a gateway drug” claim. Something like 90% of heroin addicts were found to have started with MJ, so this was supposed to ‘prove’ that the use of MJ almost inevitably led to harder drugs. In order to demonstrate the cause-and-effect relationship, you have to start with a large RANDOM sample population, filter them for previous MJ use, and then examine their current use of drugs.

Karen Stauffer

50w↑8

I've always said the real gateway drug is caffeine!

Bacon2000🏳️‍🌈⃠ anti gay

44w

That's true that's a way to lie with statistics they prove a unrelated conclusion with unrelated evidence but that does show something: most heroine addicts started with marijuana and because that is true reducing marijuana we reduce the amount of future heroine addicts

It's false to say that it proves if you use marijuana it will likely make you a heroine addicts it is true to say based on the statistics that reducing marijuana would reduce the amount of heroine addicts as if that 90% weren't exposed to marijuana how likely is it that they become heroine addicts

deadlee0b1

43w

@Bacon2000🏳️‍🌈⃠ anti gay Moving from marijuana to heroine is less to do with exposure to the drug and more to do with exposure to illicit drugs. People move from marijuana to heroine because they see that the propaganda about marijuana is false, so they assume that it is probably also false in regards to other drugs. Also, a lot of marijuana dealers also sell heroine.

By legalizing marijuana with the same message as alcohol (its fine as long as you use it responsibly), they can buy consistent quality marijuana at a licensed store, without being exposed to more dangerous substances.

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bird3713

43w↑11

I ran into this recently with my job as an auditor. We evaluated the reasonableness of a company’s marketing expense by comparing it to revenue. The idea was that if their revenue went up, it was due to increased marketing expenses (I know there can be other factors too). Anyways, most months their expense hovered around 2% of revenue. One month it was 3.5%. My staff told me “that’s less than a 2% increase; it’s very trivial”. I said “that’s a 60% increase- it’s worth looking into”.

Logan Montgomery

43w

Yeah it’s interesting how people think about percentages

Recreational Cycling East Midlands

44w↑6

Using statistics in court worries me a little since people should be proven guilty, not assumed guilty based on statistical models that are below 100%.

Mikael Virji

43w↑1

If the probability that the person is guilty isnt 100%, I say they go free.

Recreational Cycling East Midlands

43w↑2

@Mikael Virji Things are rarely 100%, but if there's not a convincing case and evidence then I think statistics should not be used in an attempt to sway the jury.

TheSireHeich

2y↑2.9K

Within my statistics class in college we actually had to identify misleading charts and graphs and explain how they were designed to mislead. I saw graphs that were upside down, with offset scales, and even the use of specific colors to elicit a response.

River Shen

2y↑72

That's pretty low level manipulating that literally a 7th grader could tell was fishy.

Jamie Boer

2y↑340

@River Shen Whats crazy though, is that it still works even on people who know that.

Dreugh

2y↑47

@Twin Dolphin Playing in Aquarian Moonlight This isn't statistics, it's a bait

Nicler

2y↑65

@Twin Dolphin Playing in Aquarian Moonlight Thats the dumbest shit i have heard in a while tbh

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Jared smith

1y↑10

Thanks for the awesome video Zach. I’m taking stats for engineers next term and you made me actually excited about it.

Wolforce

2y↑8

Setup and punchline. This video is seriously good. Congratulations, it was interesting all the way, and even had a plot twist. Congratulations and thank you for the content.

Lars Jørgensen

47w↑3

🎉 This video is a true example of the impotance of getting the whole storey, and not stop in the beginning and make fast decisions. 😊

Joseph Morphew

2y↑12

I agree with basically all of what you said. I just get irritated with people who think they’re galaxy brains for saying that statistics are invalid because people can use technicalities to make their point seem better than it actually is.

Bigmoney703

1y↑6

The whole time I was thinking how the first few court examples given must be wrong... happy you were able to share the correct interpretations later

Theo Tungsten

3y↑4.4K

"If 4 out of 5 people suffer from radiation poisoning, does that mean that the 5th guy enjoys it?"

-Codsworth, Fallout 4

Dragan Andrei

3y↑71

Good one

Processing Information

3y↑47

lmao coddy is such a legend

Heu Valadao

3y↑8

Savage

Seth Adkins

3y↑78

I mean obviously, radiation positing feels fucking amazing and idk why more people don't like it

Thiago Andrey

3y↑84

I love how the fifth comment talks about enjoying radiation poisoning

11 More Replies...

GeddyRC

1y↑2

Great video. I unfortunately know a lot of people who need to see this information, yet still argue statistics in ways that favor their own beliefs instead of challenge them. It’s frustrating for sure.

MyAnalogLife

2y↑1

Great video, I see it as any number or statistic can be made to look better/ worse depending on how it is presented and at the same time if you can understand which way to look at the result, normally it can give you the correct result as long as you understand the Bias involved.

WF.I.

45w

Very informative video. I want to think that I'm open to view things from different perspectives and not judge too soon. I knew most of what you said about statistics and it's a very dangerous tool that can mislead a majority of people.

tori2dles

2y↑3

That story of Sally Clarke is supremely sad. That poor, poor lady. She probably already felt as though she was such a failure because they died. How horrible.

Rey D

44w↑1

That Target case is why I don't use my drugstore loyalty card on certain purchases. The laws have almost definitely changed since then, but it still leaves a barely-rational scar in the back corner of my psyche.

Cycling Cycles

5y↑8.9K

Statistics have shown that if you start a sentence with "Statistics have shown" people are more likely to believe you.

Bluecatdk

5y↑37

Lol

ITR

5y↑457

73.6% of all statistics are made up

stonecat

5y↑289

@ITR but other statistics have shown that that is, in fact, false

Henning

5y↑191

I literally believed you quite a lot before finishing the sentence. Afterwards I realized that you started the sentence with "Statistics have shown" which made me realize that it already fooled me.... good one

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Mikosch2

2y↑3

That 5% vs. 100% is an interesting point about language as well. In German we call the concept percent vs. percent points. So, they'll often the tax "was raised by 3 percent points", because that sounds much less grabby than saying "it was doubled", let alone "it was raised by 100 percent."

OrpheusCreativeCo

1y↑2

This is rather important for the public to understand when ingesting the news 👍 Thanks for this! ✌️

Dawn Marie Champ

2y↑2

Thank you. I remember the book “How to Lie With Statistics” from both my Statistics and Law courses. But careful pointing this out to a Mathematician without the examples on hand

Lynton Fleming

Bookmarks video

Time to go make some maths nerds cry.

Liberty4Ever

2y↑1

Interesting that the end of the video mentioned the real world use (and misuse) of statistics as opposed to a school setting. I was already planning on commenting that this video is a great education in critical thinking that is not being taught in public schools.

bardofhighrenown

Even as someone who loves math and is majoring in it. Using statistics to convict people of crimes is extremely dangerous and alarming.

LokiN

4y↑4.9K

This should be the introduction of every statistics class

Mrwaterman

4y↑218

Youll be happy to know then that these examples are famous in the statistics world and actually were in the first few lessons of my probability theory course :)

Tom Merker

4y↑58

@Mrwaterman same, we didn't have the exact same examples, but the message was the same

Bart Gibby

4y↑23

stories are super common in marketing college classes... kinda old news actually. I went to college almost two decades ago.

CC

4y↑31

Yes, it's how statistics can give you the power to lie, and how to use them to push your own agenda. Maybe they should teach this in highschool honestly.

joe

4y↑3

same here we learned this my freshman year of uni

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TheBlobik

Lessons:

1. In graphs, always include 0
2. When giving percentage changes, always provide both percent increase (if it doubled, its a 100% increase) and percentage point increase together (if it went from 1% to 2%, it increased by 1 pp)

Siggy Benedict-Shields

42w

Back in the 70s my Dad always talked about how easy it was to lie with statistics. He wasn’t even a mathematician.

e v

1y↑1

This is why things are so difficult to trust. Data is skewed to a point that you constantly have to read between the lines and verify. It's truly exhausting

EinStijn13

2y↑6

It would have been great if you also explained the existence of the term 'percentage point', or in finance the term 'bips' (0.001 percentage point)
These are the correct terms to describe the absolute increase of a percentage
So 5% to 10% is an increase of 100%, or 5pp, or 500 bips

mukundan nair

2y↑2

Shouldn't it be 5000 bips? Or am I missing something

justnTime077

Damnit Zach you reignited my passion for stat that my teenage self lacked the discipline to truly study more than I had to even though I still carry the basis with me to understand what you’re talking about.

Francis The Walnut

3y↑1.6K

The Sally Clark case is so sad. Imagine losing both of your infant children because of something you cant control- and then getting sent to prison and demonized for what happened to you.

mycatphsyco

3y↑143

I really hope that Sally and all of her immediate family members genetics were taken into account because rare genetic disorders can be very prevalent and over represented in a family with a faulty genetics

skinnyboyasian

3y↑6

This video will probably definitely help you irl

Tretch

3y↑124

I just don’t understand how a doctor couldn’t see how those two events could be reasonably dependent, not independent. I have little medical education, but even I could assume immediately that someone who gave birth to a dead child once may reasonably have some type of health condition that could lead to a second problematic childbirth.

Nick Dahl

3y↑73

@Tretch well the prosecution was operating under the assumption of guilt: they found a doc who would say what they wanted and didn't waste time trying to see if it actually held up scrutiny

Fred Bassett

3y↑38

The case of Sally Clark sounds very similar to a now proven link of genetic defect causing death in very young. 60 Minutes Australia aired a similar incident of a woman, jailed so far, for 18yrs, her surname Folbigg, last night 29Aug2021. She lost 4 young children. She has lost her latest appeal based on the statistics rather than the new scientific study.

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Main Channel

2y↑1

Awesome! People must be taught critical thinking from an early age.

RedFluxBlueDawn

44w↑2

VictorHCG

2y↑1

Brettfast

1y↑1

They should make stats a requirement for highschool graduation. People are too often manipulated because of stat misuse.

SaaRbn

1y↑1

One of the most informative videos I've seen this year 👏🏽

Paul K

2y↑2K

For court cases. Statistics should only be used as supplementary evidence to actual hard evidence. It's terrifying to hear or believe that entire cases were set guilty purely on statistics.

Souradeep sen

2y↑64

Hard agree.

Tristan Belin

2y↑41

If there is any hard evidence proving guilt/innocence in the first place, then why bother with statistics ?

Anonymous User

2y↑114

@Tristan Belin proving guilt has to be 99% beyond any reasonable doubt. Sometimes statistics can push it over the boundary. It's all about convincing the jury.

NadirQG

2y↑26

@Tristan Belin Because you don't know what the defense will say regarding the proof. Statistics can make the defense tougher, but I don't think anyone should use statistics as the only argument of guilt.

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Martin Habovštiak

47w

Great explainer and people should definitely see this! Just a detail: you forgot to mention that some correlations might be from random chance. E.g. there's a correlation between number of movies starring Nicolas Cage and number of people drowning but it looks like neither one causes the other nor something else causes both. Or from your examples it's not clear that being wealthy causes obesity. (There are various arguments against this.)

T.J. Snyder

12:20 this is one of my favorite things in statistics, very interesting to see how perspective matters.

fr89k

47w

I also like to create charts wich don't start at zero, because it makes the differences more visible. However, in all my scientific publications where I did this, I have very clearly drawn a broken y axis, so that the graph can't be easily read incorrectly.

Local Hitman

44w

I’m taking AP Stats after I take AP Calc BC and imma bring this up to my teacher for that, who happens to be my cross country coach. This is really cool and very powerful.

Acenio

2y↑1

We can fix a lot of confusion by simply saying precentages change to x instead of by x.
We could further this by requiring outlets to share previous values as well.

Jim Meade

5y↑1.5K

My father once told me "Figures don't lie but liars can figure." Good video. Thank you!

Bribed Jupiter

5y↑72

go figure

Pete H

5y↑1

I’ve seen your comments on other videos lol, they must have been good comments for me to remember

gurvzz

IM liker 200

TheLoneBit

5y↑3

Ooo. Yo daddy smart.

Controle Quebrado

5y↑7

my father once told me the world was gonna roll me

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Jonsmith82

that was really eye opening, great job, very informative with humour. you have a new subscriber here

Roland Reich

2y↑2

The second example you present in the beginning, the one with the two SIDS cases, just means that in one of 72 Million cases of parents having two kids one of them will be found guilty of murder regardless whether they are actually guilty or not.

fntTheSmth

This video feels like a freshman majoring in statistics is enthusiastically telling me what lead him to pick that subject, and when he pauses for breath I bring up how I had that same realization when I watched Cyber Chase at age five.

Odds are good this results in an hours long back and forth about the complexity of the world and how numbers reflect and are reflected by our reality!

But there's a non-zero chance this comment brings the conversation to an awkward, ego-bruised halt.

Also i wrote this comment twice and clicked "comment" only for it not to show up. It was only when i noticed my phone was on airplane mode that i realized, for the umpteenth time, that tis i who be the silly fool

老托

Very good video. I was just suggested this video, so I apologize if you already made a video that I'm going to request now:
How to actively spot lies in statistics and get the true picture.

Yes, I get that you showed us the Y not 0 baseline.. :)

panulli4

1y↑1

5:53 There is also the term 'percentage points' that completely resolves the issue: "The dropout rate increased by 100 percent and 5 percentage points."

gerald frost

52w↑4

My degree is in physics, which means math, math, math, and reality.
I have learned that in advertising and politics, whenever they use statistics, they are lying.
"If you give a man who only has a penny, another penny, you've doubled his wealth! So what: he still only has two cents."
Even when the math is correct, it's hiding something.

"The prosecutor will tell the jury their case against you is a brick." Holds up a playing card. "It has four sides, like a brick. It is solid like a brick." Taps card on the bunk. "My job is to turn their case sideways because when you look at their case in the right way," turns the card edge on, "their case disappears."
~ My Cousin Vinny

Graeme Payne

1y↑3

When I was in college in the early 1970's, one of the textbooks for an introductory ststistics course was a slim book titled "How to lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff.
When my wife was in college 30 years later, for a similar course she was required to have to have exactly the same book. (She checked in the bookstore and verified it is the same edition.) So she just used my old copy, saved $25 and did fine.
I do like times when I find instances of mis-applied statistics, something that was occasionally useful in my professional life.

Ruruls

Nothing like a little Zach Star to start off my day, I think I speak for all of us!

X Bioman

What a great video. I often get in to arguments with people over their mis-use of statistics.

Deborah Craig

Might I highlight a 'misuse' of spelling and grammar here. Should I get into an argument with you over words?? Lol.. Just bants BTW

Lindsey Lindsey

44w

I once saw an infographic that displayed the average heights of women from different countries with stick figures of women next to each other, but it started at 5 feet and went up by inches. As a result, for example (I don’t remember the exact countries but I think they were in the same general area as the ones I use, you get the idea), the average height of a woman from the UK, 5’5”, appeared to be five times taller than the average height of a woman from India, 5’1”, towering over them like Godzilla or something

Sandvink

4y↑2.9K

Statistics is the art of never having to say you’re wrong.

Kasiarzyna

4y↑44

100% statisticians made at least one correct statement about statistics, which many non-statisticians never have. Therefore, statisticians are more trustworthy. Which means you really should trust a statistician you just met more than you should trust a non-statistician you have known for your whole life.

harry tan

4y↑18

@Kasiarzyna Many is a tricky word in statistics. A responsible statistician will not use this word in this context as "many" can be interpreted as any number greater than 100. Since a non-responsive statistician has a higher rate of using misleading statistics, I will not trust you here.

Fiv

4y↑2

13 100 50 100

Andrew Apsley

4y↑5

It's the "science" that knows every other science better than the scientists in those areas without knowing anything about the science or so some of my former bosses think.

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No Name

They should honestly teach entire classes on how to recognize misleading statistics and claims made using incomplete data.

Poco Por Poco

2y↑6

That first story, I think, was the "1/x means they're guilty" story. The biggest issues with that case were that the odds were essentially made up, meaning 1/x was never truly given and could therefore not be used as evidence. Then, you have the whole notion of, despite being a small chance, it's STILL a chance they're innocent.

SadistkSuffring

My favorite instance of this happening is Edward Bernays making bacon a breakfast staple. Dude was a marketing genius. Worst is when studies choose to leave out p values and attempt to use correlation. Happens a lot in health related self help and homeopathic remedies.

Aleksi

2y↑2

Man this video proves me that math can be super cool! Schools just make it boring cause they can do so…

Tacos Living Life

I was YELLING at my phone screen when I heard of that first court case, how could an actual statistician/mathematician make such an elementary mistake

WoterShep42

4y↑2.6K

It’s like saying “ it’s easier to get into Harvard than a job at Walmart”
- Walmart acceptance rate - 2.6%
- Harvard acceptance rate - 5.2%

Matt

4y↑168

Walmart has a 2.6% job acceptance rate??

njux

4y↑474

@Matt imagine like 1000 people a year applying for Walmart bc everyone can apply but Walmart only needs 3 workers

Timeless

4y↑73

caprice.t Yeah that's right, gotta look at the size of the sample, not only the proportion of the sample that's accepted into a job or a programme

João Paulo Kloeckner Guimarães

4y↑66

caprice.t One thing though. Its not easier, its just more likely. For the average person It would be easier to get tô work for Walmart, but since only people with a decent level of instruction apply to Harvard, its more likely that these people would succeed, but for a regular person It would be almost Impossible

David Piepgrass

4y↑19

I doubt Walmalt has a 2.6% acceptance rate, but it's not hard to imagine that out of all the Walmarts in the world, one of them somewhere has a 2.6% acceptance rate due to an overabundance of unskilled workers applying.

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Awesome Ian

Another thing with percentages I always find misleading is how numerical changes don’t always match the change in percent.
For example, let’s say you had share of a stock that was worth $100.
If it were to go down by 20% you would lose $20, but if it were to go up by 20% you would gain $25.

ExaltedDuck

46w

That side death one ignores the important fact that you can't just multiply two probabilities together if they have confounding factors, and familial ties contain countless confounding factors on medical issues.

Limitiey

Wow, very persuasive examples. Good work!

Broesky

The big lesson missing from this is learning inductive and deductive reasoning.

TotallyCluelessGamer

1y↑1

Its interesting how when you keep an eye out for manipulative statistics you'll find them basically everywhere from Corporate Advertising all the way through UN Studies and reports. Makes you wonder how many people are manipulated by these numbers and how far somebody could disconnect a group from real events unfolding around them just by reporting real numbers in a deceptive manner.

Edward Lucas

2y↑1.1K

During a staff meeting, one of my managers complained that the number of performance appraisals she was expected to write had doubled over the prior year. The other managers looked shocked until I agreed with her and said "Yes, it has doubled. Now you do two instead of one". We all had a good laugh.

Kevin

2y↑17

Lol,hope you didn't get fired for that.

jcsjcs2

2y↑22

I hope it was because she got a second employee and not because she has to do two appraisals instead of one for each employee.

Edward Lucas

2y↑36

@jcsjcs2 It was a second employee under her supervision.

🇺🇸⭐⭐⭐Daniel Evans 🎸

2y↑3

One of statistic's better uses is in the leadership preformance algorithm that includes the skill "sets" as productivity multipliers... 😁

Naryoril

47w

The whole "differentiating between correlation and causation" issue is something SOOOO many people didn't get during the Covid pandemic...

Battle Breaker Guides

It’s still very experimental and not completely set and decided for all patterns found in humans but it definitely can be used in places like courts or social patterns

VLADZF

I used to work as an Enterprise Operations Analyst and I did this all the time, use whatever data you needed to justify the higher ups stupid ideas and changes on the company, even tho the info is giving everyone the full picture of whats going on

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