“I think that a failure of statistical thinking is the major intellectual shortcoming of our universities, journalism and intellectual culture. Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics. Yet pundits continue to hallucinate trends in freak events, like the Norwegian sniper (who shot all those young people on an island) and make wildly innumerate comparisons, such as between Afghanistan and Vietnam, or between today’s human trafficking and the African slave trade. It’s a holdover of the literary sensibilities of our science-flunking intellectual elite, who would be aghast if someone didn’t know who Milton was, but cheerfully flaunt their ignorance of basic science and mathematics.”
Steven Pinker (via azspot)
Notes
-
hellopoodle likes this
-
salientverses reblogged this from sociolab
-
pavlovsstepson reblogged this from azspot
-
reasonedoverreaction reblogged this from tanyasgarden
-
selloutsamizdat reblogged this from dimplevjk
-
missmokushiroku reblogged this from weirdsociology
-
speakgirl likes this
-
thebrokenlyre reblogged this from weirdsociology
-
brosophila likes this
-
weirdsociology reblogged this from sociolab
-
xntrek likes this
-
ungracefulme likes this
-
isay likes this
-
trafalgar-rgh likes this
-
stellabluee reblogged this from azspot
-
contemplatingmadness reblogged this from dishabillic
-
dimplevjk reblogged this from dishabillic
-
rustandstardust1 likes this
-
wanderingguty likes this
-
istellar reblogged this from sociolab
-
tesslacoil reblogged this from dishabillic
-
toolateadopter likes this
-
ashamedtosay likes this
-
michelleneous likes this
-
portorock likes this
-
thecoffeebreaklife likes this
-
sociolab reblogged this from dishabillic
-
tomthemountainmurphy likes this
-
alfredodistefano reblogged this from cuckooforcristiano
-
cuckooforcristiano reblogged this from dishabillic
-
awkwardlycharming21 likes this
-
idterab likes this
-
dishabillic reblogged this from novembuary
-
novembuary reblogged this from azspot
-
wateringgoodseeds likes this
-
buchino likes this
-
smartasshat likes this
-
gracielalala likes this
-
summersumz likes this
-
mattdoucette likes this
-
pocketcontents reblogged this from doublejack
-
pocketcontents likes this
-
blissandzen likes this
-
dextercolt likes this
-
froggeek likes this
-
fatmanatee likes this
-
doublejack reblogged this from azspot
-
doublejack likes this
-
gilmoure reblogged this from azspot
-
nickrecommends likes this
- Show more notes
