How to grab the coffee cup. The statistical reasoning in everyday life

By Simone Di Zio

In today’s society, we are inundated by data, but the lack of familiarity with the statistical reasoning is widespread and produces an infinite number of wrong choices. Sometimes with minor impact, sometimes with serious consequences for our health or public safety. Yet to think statistically does not require to know the statistic, but only to reason in a different way in front of the events of our everyday life. In fact, we are often victims of conditionings and stereotyped behaviors that, far more often than we think, lead us to wrong choices. This book talks about cognitive biases and evaluation of risks, but without using formulas or statistical models. It tries to explain that there is not a misfortune that haunts us (as those who believe in Murphy’s Law), but only a series of events with a certain probability of occurrence. Relying on a certain type of reasoning, purified from stereotypes and automatic behaviors, can be fun. In other words, by knowing how the statistic works we can avoid many mistakes, unnecessary angers, extra charges and domestic accidents. Sometimes with scientific rigor, sometimes joking, the book explains how it is more convenient for our health to drink a coffee with the left hand. It tells all with a story of an ordinary day, where the main character can be any of us. Getting up in the morning, have breakfast, go to work, drive a car, park it, drink a coffee at the bar, grocery shopping, enter a store, archiving documents or take a beer from the fridge. These are all situations that seemingly have nothing to do with statistics, but where the statistical reasoning is very important and in this book, the author explains how to do everything “statistically”. The book’s purpose is also to make people smile, but you can also delve into the things said and get ideas to reflect on many other aspects of your lifestyles. Understand the most dangerous situations from a statistical point of view, can make us shift our attention to the important things of our life, in order to assess correctly the risks. Many people are afraid of flying, yet they drive the car every day without any worries. Why does this happen, if everyone knows that the probability of dying in a car accident is much higher than that of dying in a plane crash? Because we are all victims of cognitive biases. Against the cognitive biases, the statistical reasoning is very powerful. It takes a little getting used to but with practice, you can reach good results. Think statistically and your life will be easier and safer. Apply my law in your daily life: “If anything can go wrong, there is a statistical explanation” and you will not be a victim of the Murphy’s Law.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simone Di Zio
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9786050403824

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Note

INTRODUCTION

In modern society, we are inundated by data, but the lack of familiarity with the statistical reasoning is widespread, even among educated people, and this produces an infinite number of wrong choices. Sometimes with little impact, sometimes with serious consequences for our health or public safety.

Yet to think in a statistical way does not require to know the statistic, as intended for universities, full of formulas and mathematical models that makes suffer many students, but only to think in a different way in facing the events of everyday life, without being influenced by prejudices and stereotypes. In this book, we will learn how to do it!

The Nobel prize Daniel Kahneman, in his best seller Thinking Fast and Slow (D. Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, Macmillan, 2011) explains how we are erroneously used to believe that the man, as a rational being, is capable of objectively assess the situations he faces, and to always choose the optimal decision. His studies completely dismantle this belief and show that, on the contrary, we are always victims of conditioning and stereotyped behaviors that, far more often than we think, lead us to wrong choices.

In this framework, the media confuse us further and increase the cognitive biases, namely the frequent forms of distortion of evaluation or lack of objectivity of a judgment caused by bias and/or internalization of stereotyped concepts.

Who has never heard the news that, with great alarmism, says that the measured temperature is above or below the seasonal average? But this, which is often presented as a concern, and which makes us think to climate change and to the greenhouse effect, not only it is normal but even inevitable. In fact, the average temperature is calculated over a certain number of values of the past years, but this does not mean that every day we must have the same temperature, always equal to the average. The temperature of each day is always, by its nature, greater than or less than the average, due to the natural oscillations of the climatic factors.

For example, yesterday July 13, 2015, the maximum temperature in my town (Pescara, Italy) was 34 degrees Celsius, while the average temperature in July is 29.2 degrees. However, this does not mean that we are overheating the planet or destroying ourselves: it’s just one of those very normal hot days of July, as there have always been in this town on the Adriatic sea, and there will be in the future. The data provided by the TV (34 degrees) is not false, but it is our perception that deceives us, because we are not accustomed to think in a statistical way.

Another cognitive bias, very common, arises from the belief that two phenomena are one cause of the other, when in fact it is not. The example of the Russell’s chicken is famous. The chicken every day is happy to see the farmer, because he brings him food. But, if he