For centuries, statistics have often been used as a tool of rhetoric for speakers and writers.
More than that, the notion of “knowledge” is often mistakenly based on the need to provide quantitative data to prove “truths.”
But like every other aspect of our juvenile-delinquent-of-a-21st-century, statistical backup data is not only overused but in many cases simply faked.
We should be concerned about this.
It’s one of those things in our society that is blindly taken for granted.
Quote a few percentage rates and numbers of “individuals,” and you have a nod from the person you’re trying to convince.
Moreover, modern science and our whole academic system rests on the omnipotent notion that performance can always be measured by a few researchers willing to run experiments targeting quantitative results.
Isolate a sample group, ask questions, run tests, do the math, analyze results and voila: You can apply that little truth to whatever you want to call “the real life.”
How detached from reality is an experiment or a mathematical procedure meant to prove something about that reality?
How accurate and stable are the conditions on which statistical data is produced?
Just one more question, and I don’t ask this hypothetically.
I’d like you to answer, even if only to yourself: How likely are you to change your opinion within the span of one day? About big or small things, it doesn’t matter.
Sorry again — I’m being too “subjective.” Let me try to be more practical: How probable is it that you trip and fall on a stone in the street today? I can answer that one: There are two statistical answers — 100 percent or 0 percent.
The plane you are in is either going to fall or not, no matter how many chances in a million there are for a plane to crash.
There’s no percentage in the statistical wonderland that is going to make you feel safer. It’s a 100-percent or 0-percent chance it is going to happen.
The worst kind of publicity are statistics such as “every x seconds, something y happens to z group of people.”
It’s not hard to do the math and realize that in a fair amount of years, every subject of z will have suffered y.
But what can I say about it? I’m just a musician.
The percentage of notes I can get right in a performance, or the number of recitals I can give in one month is no guarantee that I will communicate the art of music to whomever sees me play.
And the importance of my work can hardly be verified “objectively” enough to justify my existence.
It’s not like x-percent of people are going to succeed in life because they are planning to attend the LSU Symphony concert this Friday.
I could also never estimate how many students out of the average of 100 that comes to the concert is going to feel inspired and intrigued, and maybe have more energy to start preparing for finals.
There’s no way in the world I’m going to understand statistics.
I’m probably just one of the 99.9 percent of people that believes that life will go on, even when our monetary statistics are falling off the charts — and to the floor.
Marcelo Vieira is a 32-year-old jazz cello graduate student from Brazil. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_MVieira.
 
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Contact Marcelo Vieira at [email protected]