What would be some fact that, while true, could be told in a context or way that is misinfomating or make the other person draw incorrect conclusions?
Wearing your seatbelt increases your chances of dying from cancer.
This one is great! Made me think way too much
How?
You’ll live longer.
If you die from cancer you can’t die from a car wreck.
Other way around, for the purposes of this joke, but yes.
It increases your chance of drowning, but not for the reason people usually think.
I don’t know if this counts, since it’s only a “true fact” if you are fine with carefully chosen words and the omission of crucial information…
But the 13-50 stat is dangerously misleading.
You know,
Black people make up 13% of the population, but 50% of the violent crime.
Black people in America do, in fact, make up 50% of the murder arrests according to FBI crime statistics
That much is true.
But certain people tend to use this fact to assert that police officers are far more likely to be killed by black people than by white people. Therefore, the stats that show them brutalizing black people at a higher rate – since they fall short of that 50% number – are evidence that they hold back around black people to avoid appearing racist.
The users of this stat heavily imply black people are more violent and murder-prone, and hence a greater threat. The argument also carries with it an implied benefit to eugenics or a return to slavery (to anyone paying attention.)
But no one using this stat ever explores potential causes for the arrest rate disparity, instead letting their viewers assume it comes from “black culture” (if they are closeted racists) or “bad genes” (if they are open racists).
There’s no attention paid to the fact that black people make up over half of overturned wrongful convictions
There’s no attention paid to the stats further down in that same FBI crime stats table that make it clear that black people make up 25% of the nation’s drug arrests, despite making up close to 13% of the US’s total drug users. (Their population’s rate of drug use is within a margin of error of white people’s rate of drug use). It should be strange that a small portion of the perpetrators of drug crimes make up such an outsized portion of the total drug arrests in this country. But the disparity doesn’t even get a mention.
There’s no attention paid to the fact that more than half of US murders go unsolved, meaning even assuming impartial sentencing and prosecution, we would only know black people committed 50% OF 50% of the murders – 25%. And in a country where 98% of the land is owned by white people and the public defender system is in shambles? Which demographic do you think would be able to afford the best defense, avoiding conviction even when guilty, and ending up overrepresented in the “unsolved murder” category? If only 50% of murders end in a conviction, that means every murderer who walks into a courtroom has a solid chance at getting away with it. Even more solid if the murderer belongs to the richest race. The murder arrest rate by race winds up just being a measure of which demographics can afford the best lawyers, rather than any proportional representation of each demographic’s tendencies.
They mention none of that. The people hawking this statistic intentionally lead their viewers to assume, “arrested for murder” is equivalent to “guilty of murder.” And that 50% of the murder arrests is equivalent to 50% of the total murders. The entire demographic is assumed to be more dangerous.
Excellent explanation, thanks.
My pleasure.
I’ve seen similar stuff multiple times, often with misquoted statistics. What many miss is that context is as important as stats.
The thing about this is that the kind of people who quote statistics like that typically don’t have an interest in all of that. They start with a racist assertion, then search for anything that appears to corroborate. They have no interest in actually understanding the statistic, they only care about it insofar as they believe it justifies their racism.
That, or they know it doesn’t and they’re purposely arguing in bad faith.
Yeah… that’s a pretty reasonable conclusion. It’s hard to just state outright though, when I live with the exact sort of person described in your comment.
It’s interesting: the people who are fine with calling an entire race murderous seem to take great umbrage at being considered “racist.”
It’s the r-word to them – a slur used to invalidate their concerns and diminish the importance of their well-being.
That their concerns ought to be invalidated – since they are the racist result of racist fear-mongering – is never well-received.
The real bottom line is that when you create an underclass of people whose neighborhoods get firebombed or bulldozed when they get too affluent (see e.g. “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa and Auburn Avenue (formerly “the richest Negro street in the world”) in Atanta, respectively) and had generations of absent fathers due to persecution for things like “vagrancy”, of course they’re going to stop giving a shit about laws that bind but do not protect them! It’s entirely rational that people systematically excluded from being able to get ahead while acting within the law, and whose behaviors are deliberately criminalized in order to target them, would end up committing crimes at higher rates than the people benefiting from their oppression did. In other words, even if it’s true that they actually commit crimes at higher rates (as opposed to being accused at higher rates or being less likely to avoid conviction, as you pointed out, which just make the statistical bias even worse by compounding on top), even that is disingenous because it ignores that the disparity is caused by classism and institutional racism, not anything intrinsic to their race itself. The fiction that it’s somehow their own fault is like a society-wide version of “stop hitting yourself.”
Oh 100% this. The main accomplishment of Tulsa and Auburn was keeping black people impoverished, and…
“About 60 [academic] papers show that a very common result of greater inequality is more violence, usually measured by homicide rates,” says Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level and co-founder of the Equality Trust. - source
For as long as society insists on high inequality with one race forcefully held at the bottom, no rational person can expect that race to be peaceful.
It’s just… I have a hard time bringing this concept to the table in a debate with someone who believes “personal responsibility” can somehow magically indemnify society of its impact on people.
Scratch that. I actually have no answer whatsoever to people who think that way. What am I supposed to say to such a person? It’s such an alien worldview to me.
This guy facts.
The real bottom line is that when you create an underclass of people whose neighborhoods get firebombed or bulldozed when they get too affluent (see e.g. “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa and Auburn Avenue (formerly “the richest Negro street in the world”) in Atanta, respectively) and had generations of absent fathers due to persecution for things like “vagrancy”, of course they’re going to stop giving a shit about laws that bind but do not protect them! It’s entirely rational that people systematically excluded from being able to get ahead while acting within the law, and whose behaviors are deliberately criminalized in order to target them, would end up committing crimes at higher rates than the people benefiting from their oppression did. In other words, even if it’s true that they actually commit crimes at higher rates (as opposed to being accused at higher rates or being less likely to avoid conviction, as you pointed out, which just make the statistical bias even worse by compounding on top), even that is disingenous because it ignores that the disparity is caused by classism and institutional racism, not anything intrinsic to their race itself. The fiction that it’s somehow their own fault is like a society-wide version of “stop hitting yourself.”
The introduction of seatbelt legislation lead to an increase in nonfatal vehicular injuries
Similarly, the introduction of metal helmets for soldiers corresponded with an increase of head injuries.
Body armor in the second Gulf war contributed greatly to an increased rate of amputations on soldiers.
Ah, survivor bias. Reminds me of analysis of damage to bombers in WW2. Data showed most damage was done to the wings and body of planes. The tail, cockpit and engines were rarely damaged. They responded by reinforcing those areas that were frequently damaged.
However they were only observing bombers that made it back to base and so data on planes that were shot down was missing. Luckily someone did eventually realise this and so the research could be used as evidence that strikes to the areas rarely recorded indicated a downed plane.
When metal helmets were introduced in the middle of WW1, head injuries went up!
those damn seatbelts!
test
Light roasted coffee has more caffeine than dark roasted coffee.
Technically, per bean, more of the caffeine is cooked out of the dark roast. However, other things are also roasted out of a dark roast to the point that the individual beans are also lighter and smaller. When brewing coffee, usually you either weigh your dose of beans out, or you use a scoop for some consistency. Either method will result in more dark roast beans ultimately making it into the brew than would with a (larger, heavier) light roast.
Typically, this more than cancels out the reduced caffeine content per bean, so a brew of dark roast coffee still typically has more caffeine in it.
If I remember correctly, dark roast was also originally devised to hide bad-quality coffee beans. Nowadays it is often implied that darker roasts are better, which actually isn’t necessarily the case.
Implied where? All the coffee snobs ik ow drink lighter roasts and derogatorily call dark roasts “supermarket coffee”
Can confirm. Source: am coffee snob.
Dark roasts have a more consistent taste/flavor and it has a longer shelf life, so it’s easier to know what you’re getting. If you want to taste the variety of flavors coffee can have, you’ll go for fresher lighter roasts.
Yup, I had to explain this to so many people when I sold coffee. Nobody believed me at all. I explained that dark roast had more of the caffeine cooked out of it.
Oh shit I’ve repeated this to people and confidently claimed I can “feel” the difference with light roasts. Brains are stupid.
“Brain make people dumb” – says the brain. How can I trust it?
Can’t trust what the brain says, it makes people dumb.
This is actually very interesting and I had no idea. Thanks!
This is actually very interesting and I had no idea. Thanks!
Eh, sorry about that. wefwef told me to retry because there was an error while posting my comment. So I did retry… many times. I was actually sure the comment wasn’t posted at all until I saw your reply.
This is actually very interesting and I had no idea. Thanks!
This is actually very interesting and I had no idea. Thanks!
This is actually very interesting and I had no idea. Thanks!
This is actually very interesting and I had no idea. Thanks!
James Hoffman did a great video on this, and yes, kinda. It’s complicated.
‘true fact’.
- Facts cannot be anything except for true.
- Anyone who uses the two words ‘true fact’ together cannot be trusted because they know neither the meaning of the word ‘true’ or the word ‘fact’.
Oh how I miss the before times.
I’m so sorry but it’s either/or & neither/nor. Gotta follow through with the negation.
That’s very negative, however I must concur that it’s a fact the correlative conjunctions were incorrectly placed to negate the possibilities.
Whether that fact is true or not is up to you.
Counterpoint: True Facts is a great series of humorous nature documentaries.
Imagine trying to move by riding a unicycle backwards and throwing up through a giant straw. That is how the nautilus do.
True facts.
Natural language is inherently imprecise.
Boom, pedants shook.
I can’t trust you on this because you are using the words ‘true fact’.
That’s a true fact!
Facts are just objective statements, which can be either true or false, but whichever they are it is objective and not dependant on the observer.
I mean, it’s a semantic argument, and semantics is subjective, but that’s probably how the people who say ‘true fact’ are defining fact.
No, a statement can be true or false. A fact is always true.
That’s why I clarified that the definition of any word, including the word fact, is subjective.
No it’s not or we’ll bicker over every word and square could mean triangle. We have agreed upon word definitions. That’s part of a language.
Language is constantly evolving. Deal with it.
You are much more likely to die in a hospital than anywhere else.
Wait until you hear the fatality rate for hospice residents
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I don’t think this one is true, unless you mean it a different way than I’m interpreting it.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc1911892#:~:text=In 2003%2C a total of,%25)%20to%20534%2C714%20(20.8%25).
(This is the US)
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As ice cream sales in the United States increase, so do deaths in in developed parts of Africa.
I use this fact to explain to students how true information can be used to mislead people into drawing wild, deranged conclusions.
The commonality in these events is the rise in temperature during the summer. But if you leave that out, there’s an absurd argument to be made about how purchasing ice cream is inherently evil.
I don’t think it’s an amazing example of what OP is talking about, but as an example, I like how simple and easy to follow it is. Great for junior high level kids.
According to a new study published by the University of Berchul, eating ice cream can make you be in risk of drowning.
So there’s some “incorrect” assumptions you have made about the North American summer, and weather in Africa. In the North American summer, only North Africa experiences summer with you guys. The rest of the continent is blanketed in rains (West, Central and East Africa) or are in outright winter (Southern Africa). So our temperatures do come down in your winter. Your coldest months are our hottest months for most of the continent (except for North Africa). So saying the developed parts of Africa
Is this related to correlation is not causation?
Correlation at least tries to imply they’re related. As lottery sales go up in your household so does credit card debt. Not always a cause but they’re related
You’re looking for spurious correlations which is when numbers have no business even being used in a comparison
I mean, they are related. There’s a common causation (higher temperatures). There’s plenty of spurious correlations but this specific example isn’t it
yes
Not exactly. What you’re looking for is coincidence.
But correlation is sometimes caused by coincidence.
Do you have an example? I’m pretty sure correlation cannot be caused by coincidence.
Coincidence is describing two things happening at the same time but with separate causes. Correlation is describing two things having a common cause.
Here you go: https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
First thing you learn in a statistics course is that correlation doesn’t equal causation.
Correlation: two thing happening at the same time or one thing happening right after the other, regardless of whether the things are at all connected
Causation: one thing happening BECAUSE of the other
Oh yes I got my definition of correlation slightly wrong. Correlation doesn’t necessarily mean that two things have the same cause but they do relate in some way either by having a common cause or by occuring in the same system. They definitely have more in common than happening just at the same time or right after each other like a coincidence.
I didn’t claim that correlation equals causation and I hope you didn’t get the impression because this would be oviously wrong
In equally unrelated news, there’s also a direct correlation between ice cream sales and shark attacks. We have to steal all the ice cream before more people get eaten!
Dihydrogen Monoxide, commonly used in laundry detergent and other cleaning supplies, is also present in Subway sandwiches
FACT: 100% of people that consume Dihydrogen Monoxide die.
Wrong, a mortality of 94.5% has been shown not even close to 100%.
One could say that people who haven’t died yet don’t have a cause of death yet so they can’t be counted.
Maybe we can agree on “100% of people who died consumed dihydrogen monoxide beforehand”.
Except for the ones that didn’t.
They even put it into the water supply.
It can even be found in unborn babies!
Everyone who has died has ingested dihydrogen monoxide.
I’ve never lost a professional MMA match
The Seattle Mariners are the only team in the league to have never lost a World Series game
Neither have the Seattle SuperSonics.
Why is it called World Series? You kinda forgot to invite the world.
Wait until you hear about the Miss Universe competition…
(Seriously though, I agree.)
People use to say that you cant lie with statistics, but is a common practice to use statistics to lie.
We can take the infamous 41% suicide rate for trans people. Transphobes throw that out like a killing move implying that trans people are inherently unhappy and being trans is a mental illness (wish is not true).
The reality is that the suicide rate is so high because of transphobia, kids getting thrown out of home, homelessness, unable to find a job, staying at the closet to avoid social consecuences, etc.
Trans people who live in more open and accepting environments are way less likely to be depressed and commit suicide. In progresive areas where trans people are more accepted the suicide rate is nowhere near 41%.
Yeah that statistic is brutal. Like I wish more people understood it’s like saying: “we bully the shit out of people who seem depressed, we aggressively stigmatize antidepressant use, X% of people with depression will attempt suicide at some point in their lives. We should ban antidepressants and treat depressed people worse.”
Its so frustrating when I see other minorities use that argument because their suicide statistics are also typically higher! That’s the nature of oppression.
“Numbers don’t lie” is true in the same sense as “guns don’t kill”…
Numbers don’t lie, but people lie using number all the time.
It depends on how you define “lie” really. A true stat is always true, but a person can draw misleading conclusions from it if they aren’t trained and especially if they also are looking for a certain conclusion.
Man, I can’t believe we live at a time where being trans is more dangerous than having cancer…
Hey vis4valentine, you should correct “wish” to “which” in your comment. That typo could cause readers to understand the sentence completely inverted.
I learned that stats is all about lies lol
You can see the moon from The Great Wall of China.
But the opposite is not true! At least, not with the naked eye.
One of my favorite Brian Regan bits kinda fits, maybe?
“In 1939, Germany invaded Poland. One thing led to another and the United States of America dropped two atomic bombs on the sovereign nation of Japan.”
Clumsy. Did they at least pick them up on the way out?
I love Brian Regan, but I haven’t heard this bit. What’s it from?
it’s from World War II
Women have smaller brains than men.
I mean, yes. Women as a population are physically smaller than men as a population.
Women have smaller fingers than men. Smaller eyes. Smaller lungs. There is no “gotcha” that smaller skeletal frames with smaller skulls contain, by volume, a smaller organ.
Doesnt mean every man’s brain is larger than every woman’s brain either.
Doesn’t mean men are smarter than women.
It’s just a statistic, that while true, doesn’t imply what some people think it does.
There’s actually some historical context for this untrue way of thinking.
France, 1873 Paul Broca, a French physician, decides to weigh some brains. And women’s brains weighed less than men’s brains. This is part of his research into crainiometry in which the size of the brain is used to understand a mesure of intelligence. Bigger brain weight = more smart.
We now recognize crainiometry as a pesudoscience.
Then another French academic Gustav Le Bon uses Broca’s research to further engain that not only are women’s brains small causing them to have the big dumb, women are in fact more similar to gorillas in brain size. Thus, women are uncivilized, akin to children, and MUST be under the care and control of men who are CLEARLY more intelligent with their big brains and, naturally, should control and run society.
Broca did not take overall body size or age of the specimens into account when originally weighing the brains. The male specimens were younger and larger to the female specimens who were smaller and older. Brains tend to shrink as we age.
So, not only was this flawed science, based in flawed measurements, thay have been readily disproved, we’re still struggling to undo this as a belief.
History rant over.
Many years ago I worked as an analyst at a small VC firm. My boss, who was a raging misogynist prick and liked to date College freshmen, LOVED this fact (and any other Manosphere bullshit he could find about women being inferior to men). He was such an unbelievable stereotype, he could have stepped out of a sitcom.
Yeah I mean, neanderthals had bigger brains than humans, and they were no smarter than we are (as far as we know.)
Also a blue whale’s brain is four times the size of a human brain and they don’t even know how to drive.
We don’t really know where blue whales go a lot of the time, so I think that’s a bit of an assumption there.
I’m assuming down.
Their hearts are also like four times the size of the human body …but I don’t think they love us very much.
It’s just more impressive that even with a bigger brain he is still a bumbling buffoon.
It’s my pet hypothesis that people are drawn to the comfort of sitcom-level characters because they’re so basic and predictable, even when they’re terrible. Real life is so complicated that black-and-white thinking blasted by people like that is just so low-energy to consume.
Men have bigger balls is another missunderstood fact.
The average human has less than 2 arms.
Average arm has less than one human
Haha, that’s even weirder sounding.
And half a penis.
On average, humans have just under 3 inches of penis.
One testicle, and one boob
Each year, Dihydrogen Monoxide is a known causative component in many thousands of deaths and is a major contributor to millions upon millions of dollars in damage to property and the environment. Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are:
Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects.
DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
Contributes to soil erosion.
Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.
Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.
Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
Given to vicious dogs involved in recent deadly attacks.
Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere, and in hurricanes including deadly storms in Florida, New Orleans and other areas of the southeastern U.S.
Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect.
Everyone warns about DHMO, nobody knows about the dangers of hydric acid.
And even fewer people know about hydrogen hydroxide!
Or the fact that restaurants put poisons like Sodium and Chlorine in our foods.
