Statistics: The Science of Us

In Alan Smith's Ted Talk titled Why You Should Love Statistics, he focuses on the disparity between what people think is happening in their country/ community versus the true numbers according to census data. When people take a guess on a statistics question they usually (for the majority of the examples in the video) over estimate on their guess. When trying to see if he could get more accurate answers, Smith changed the survey area from country-wide to local communities. However, people still (for the most part) over estimated. Although the survey questions shown as examples in the TED talk seemed like a big guessing game influenced by biases and outside media, it gave proof that even in more familiar settings there is a disparity between what we think the data is versus what it really is. 

Smith uses a quote by economist Daniel Kahneman to precisely put into words this conclusion, “We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.” The first part of the quote reflects human biases and the reason why we cannot guess accurately about the statistics our own country/ community. Every person views the world a little differently making it, in my opinion, impossible to accurately guess on, for example, how many people in my neighborhood are pet owners, or to know something more personal like whether my neighbors own or rent their house. In saying “we can be blind to the obvious” I think it means we lack observational skills to a certain degree. But some statistics questions are impossible to accurately answer with heightened observational skills. The second part of the quote connects our lack of observation to the shown disparity between what we believe and what is real. “We are also blind to our blindness” means we cannot see that we have biases on certain topics or that we cannot see that we aren’t very observational. I think being blind to our own blindness is like talking about a subject that we think we are experts on but really, we are only high school students with limited life experience and expertise compared to people who dedicate their lives on a certain topic; another form of disparity between what we believe and the truth. Although we cannot accurately tell what the census data of our country/ community is, I don’t think it is possible to do so because we are humans with opinions and influences that make us believe what we believe.
- Alissa Jeffrey