Summary of This is How Easy It Is to Lie With Statistics

00:00:00 - 00:15:00

This video discusses how statistics can be used to mislead people. It provides examples of how statistics can be misused in the media, and how this can result in wrongful convictions.

• 00:00:00 Statistics can be used to determine whether or not a person is pregnant, and in some cases, to determine the due date of a pregnancy. In these cases, the statistician used information about pregnant women's shopping habits to determine which customers were likely pregnant. Target used this information to send coupons at just the right time, without the customer's knowledge. However, one man found out and was angry, resulting in a guilty verdict.
• 00:05:00 This video discusses how easy it is to lie with statistics. It explains that in 2007, an advertisement for Colgate toothpaste in the UK claimed that "80% of dentists recommend Colgate." However, the advertising standard authority of the UK later ordered the company to abandon the claim because they knew that people would not really understand what it meant. The study that was used allowed dentists to answer with more than one toothpaste, so the true percentage of dentists who recommended Colgate varied. Additionally, in 1995 the UK Committee on Safety of Medicines issued a warning that a certain type of birth control pill increased the risk of life-threatening blood clots by 100%. Though this was true, people were quick to assume that the increase in blood clots was caused by the pill itself. However, it is not always clear whether correlation is causation. In some cases, what is obvious is not that A causes B, but rather that B is correlated to A. For example, fast-moving wind turbines are positively correlated to fast wind. However, this does not mean that fast-moving wind turbines cause fast wind. Lastly, the video discusses the third cause fallacy, which is when people assume that because A is correlated to B, A is the cause of
• 00:10:00 Statistics can be used to mislead people, as in the case of the "blonde woman" example. In this case, the prosecution used statistics to argue that the odds of the couple being innocent were very low. In reality, the odds were much higher.
• 00:15:00 The video discusses how statistics can be misinterpreted, and provides examples of how statistics can be misused in the media. One particular example is the case of Sally Clark, who was wrongly convicted of murdering her two children. The video also discusses the use of statistics in the Terri Schiavo case, and the White House's use of a misleading graphic regarding the increase in high school diplomas.