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.
This guy facts.
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 people who believe “personal responsibility” can somehow magically indemnify society against its impact on people.
In fact, I am generally speechless when debating such people. It’s such an alien worldview to me. How can personal responsibility actually make society irrelevant? And since when?
The kinds of people who spout the 13-50 argument basically believe NOTHING society does can increase or decrease murder (except, when convenient, being “too soft on children” or “soft on crime.”)
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.”
Omfg, thank you so much for this. I find it repulsive that pos 9gaggers post 50/13 as a mantra to every post that includes black people, but no one would really want to understand from where those numbers come up😡
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!
‘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.
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.
That doesn’t mean that word definitions are absolutely not arbitrary nor subjective. They are agreed upon in a civilization at any given time. I don’t have to deal with anything.
That’s a true fact!
I can’t trust you on this because you are using the words ‘true fact’.
What about “alternative facts”?
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.
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.Edit: I stand corrected and today I learned that “correlation” means that two things have a statistical relation without any causal relation implied. There can be a causal relation but it’s not necessary. The key takeaway for me is that correlation describes a statistical relationship.
Here you go: https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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?
/Everything/, says the brain.
Thank you for laying it out like this. I’d often heard that about light roasts, but had never noticed any difference in my caffeine response when I switch roasts. At any rate I’ve always preferred dark for the flavor, but it’s good to know I’m not sacrificing any buzz for it!
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!
This is actually very interesting and I had no idea. Thanks!
This is actually very interesting and I had no idea. Thanks!
new comment
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
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.)
Neither have the Seattle SuperSonics.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
When people say a politician “raised taxes.” More often than not it’s a tax that does not apply to 99.99% of the population and they raised it from 0.000001% to 0.000002%
But boy do those campaign ads look good
Similarly, when a politician says they cut taxes, middle class tax cuts are almost always intend to “sunset”. That is, eventually, those tax cuts are designed to reverse themselves over time.
Maybe in the US. Most tax cuts that happen in Canada at least don’t tend to have an expiry. Although new governments do tend to reverse previous government’s tax policy. Although it tends to apply to tax policy across the board.
And sooooooo many voting Americans hear this and vote Republican.
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
“Vending machines are more deadly than sharks”.
While it’s true that (at least for some years) more people are killed by vending machine accidents than shark attacks, your personal risk depends on what you do. If you’re a vending machine factory worker who never goes into the ocean, you’re far more likely to be killed by a vending machine than a shark. But if you live in a part of the world that doesn’t have vending machines and you swim in the ocean every day, the reverse is true.
Wait, so you’re telling me that there are no vending machines in the ocean that are preying on people swimming in the water?
There may be, the ocean is deep and not thoroughly explored.
I think this is going to become a stock response for me
You’re scaring me! Just the thought of having a swim and then suddenly hearing a bag of chips getting stuck behind a glass panel sends shivers down my spine.
Du Dun
Du Dun
Du Dun Du Dun
Num num
Num num
However sharks have a huge PR issue and Spielberg regrets how Jaws is a big source of that
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.
I mean, 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 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.
It’s just more impressive that even with a bigger brain he is still a bumbling buffoon.
Men have bigger balls is another missunderstood fact.
Gonna need a source on that claim
