Element Descriptor
Statistics surround us, offering us precision and insight. Except they don’t. They are used, mostly, to bewilder and confuse. If you don’t understand how statistics ‘work’ – and how they are mobilised, you’ll be fodder for shoddy demagogues.
Level descriptors
| Novice | Practitioner | Expert | Ninja |
|---|---|---|---|
| You have a working knowledge of several of the basic ways in which statistics get manipulated, including for example baseline fallacies, and shonky choice of measures of central tendency | You have a solid grasp on the various ways the corporates, the civil servants and their meat puppet politicians will brightside and gaslight the population, including percentages, ratios etc, and can unpick/expose these with humour and clarity. | From a standing start you can expose all sorts of jiggery pokery in a complex and carefully crafted/slick propaganda effort, explaining how it is all smoke and mirrors, but doing so in in simple terms | You are loathed, blacklisted and no platformed by any organisation wanting to pretend it is not destroying life on earth and society (i.e. pretty much all of them) because you cut through their number-based shite like a hot knife through hotter butter, without raising a sweat. |
Element Overview Essay
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The causes of people not understanding statistics is they’ve been taught it badly in school, and it smacks of maths and complexity. And they understandably, for the most part, shy away from that stuff.
The consequences are that they can be fooled with entry level bullshit around shifting baselines or measures of central tendency or some basic percentages, which means that our lords and masters get away with stuff that they really wouldn’t be able to get away with without putting more effort in.
The solutions are for people to understand that most of the statistical jiggery pokery that they see is actually quite easy to see. See through and they can learn about it by watching simple videos about the matters that I just talked about baseline fallacies, central tendency, percentages, etc. This obviously overlaps with questions around exponential reality and to a lesser extent, non linearity.
Development Resources
Assessment Resources
