In 1909, Harvard President Lawrence Lowell wrote "Statistics are like veal pies, are good if you know the person that made them, and are sure of the ingredients". Today, the controversies between research studies can no longer be ignored i.e. you may today read a study that a certain intervention reduces blood glucose level, and tomorrow read that the same intervention has no effect or even worsens it. Although different studies are done in different conditions, the media does not deliver that to the public. Moreover, misuse of statistics (whether intentional or not) further contributes to the public mistrust in statistics.
What do you recommend to increase the public trust in statistics?
Thanks for the interesting question/discussion.
Although there is not an easy solution, it would be very help a lot if we will increase the educational level in statistics.
This is useful in science but generally speaking for every citizen, it would help to be more conscious of our scientific and political decisions.
The public needs to increase its understanding of statistics and not make ignorant generalisations such as that statistics are lies or that they can be twisted to prove anything. It's not scientists' faults if the public non comprehendo lol
Public trust in statistics is definitely related to public trust in governments.
for example, the levels of public trust in Office for National Statistics (ONS ) in the UK remain high and have not changed significantly since 2016.
Therefore, increasing public trust in statistics can be managed in two major ways:
(1) Open discussion events are important to discuss issues in a simple way and in more detail raises public confidence in data and statistics.
(2) Educating ministers and journalists in the proper use of published statistics to avoid the misuse of the collected data and the misinterpretation of the statistics. Then the public can simply understand, appreciate, and trust the statistics and its consequences.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Mathematics
- Statistics