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Topic

Statistical literacy

Most misleading statistics are not fabricated. They are real figures read the wrong way — an average standing in for a distribution, a rise measured from a low point, a correlation quietly promoted to a cause.

This topic covers the small set of concepts that catch most of those errors. None of them require maths beyond arithmetic, and each one is the difference between a number that informs you and a number that flatters whoever published it.

Videos
0

Every clip here states its source and the period it covers, and carries the underlying numbers on its page as a table you can copy.

What you'll learn

What this topic covers

  • Why the mean and the median disagree, and which one a skewed distribution demands
  • What a base rate is, and why ignoring it makes accurate tests produce mostly false positives
  • Simpson's paradox: how a trend can reverse the moment you split the data
  • Regression to the mean, and why the best performers almost always do worse next year
  • Correlation, causation, and the third variable that usually explains both

Videos

Nothing published on this topic yet — it is on the list. Browse the rest of the library.

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