Why statistics are fascinating: the numbers are us | Alan Smith | TEDxExeter

Summary

In this talk, the speaker highlights the numeracy crisis in the UK and globally, where a significant portion of the population lacks basic math skills. Despite efforts to improve these skills, the situation has not improved significantly. The speaker argues against the false dichotomy that people are either good with numbers or not, and instead advocates for the use of statistics to inspire and engage everyone. Through surprising statistics and an interactive quiz, the speaker demonstrates how statistics can reveal the disconnect between public perception and reality, sparking interest and discussion about the importance of numbers in our lives.

Takeaways

• 📊 In 2003, a UK government survey revealed that 47 out of 100 working-age adults lacked basic numeracy skills, a figure that rose to 49 in 2011.
• 🌟 Numeracy is crucial for life and societal changes, yet many people struggle with it, including nearly 40% of young people in the USA.
• 🌍 Numeracy issues are not confined to England; seven OECD countries report more than 20% of their young population with low numeracy skills.
• 🤔 The speaker challenges the false dichotomy that people are either good with numbers or not, advocating that everyone can appreciate numbers.
• 📈 Statistics, despite having an image problem, are powerful tools that can surprise and engage people when presented effectively.
• 🧠 There's a significant gap between public perception and statistical reality, as demonstrated by surveys showing misconceptions about demographics.
• 📊 Ipsos MORI's surveys highlight vast discrepancies between perceived and actual data, such as the overestimation of Muslims in England and Wales.
• 🏡 The speaker created a quiz to gauge local area knowledge using census data, aiming to make statistics accessible and engaging for everyone.
• 🎯 The quiz design was inspired by Otto Neurath's isotypes, using visual icons to represent data without complex mathematical terms.
• 🌐 The quiz's success, with a quarter of a million participants in 48 hours, shows that gamification and addressing preconceptions can make statistics appealing.
• 💡 Statistics are not just about uncertainty; they are a reflection of our society, making them inherently fascinating and relevant to everyone.

Q & A

What was the initial reaction of the UK government when they found out about the numeracy skills of the population in 2003?

The UK government was shocked to discover that 47 out of every 100 working-age adults lacked Level 1 numeracy skills, which prompted policy changes and investments.

What happened to the numeracy skills percentage when the UK government re-ran the survey in 2011?

The percentage of adults lacking Level 1 numeracy skills increased slightly from 47% to 49%.

What is the significance of Level 1 numeracy skills mentioned in the script?

Level 1 numeracy skills refer to the ability to deal with fractions, percentages, and decimals, which is a basic skill set necessary for everyday life.

How did the audience at the FT react to the numeracy skills statistic?

One of the readers joked that the figure was only shocking to 51 percent of the population, indicating a humorous yet critical reaction to the statistic.

What was the schoolchild's reaction to the numeracy issue presented by the speaker?

A schoolchild humorously questioned the reliability of the statistic by asking if the person who made the number could be part of the 49 percent who lacked numeracy skills.

According to the OECD figures mentioned in the script, which country has nearly 40 percent of young people with low numeracy?

The USA has nearly 40 percent of young people with low numeracy, as per the OECD figures.

What is the potential issue with categorizing people into those who are comfortable with numbers and those who are not?

The speaker argues that this categorization is a false dichotomy and that it's not an immutable pairing, suggesting that one doesn't need to have high numeracy skills to be inspired by numbers.

Why did the speaker become interested in statistics despite initially not excelling in it?

The speaker became interested in statistics because they realized that statistics are about us as a group and as social animals, we are fascinated by how we relate to our groups and peers.

What is the main purpose of the quiz 'How well do you know your area?' mentioned in the script?

The quiz aims to engage people with local census data in a fun and interactive way, challenging their preconceptions and perceptions about their local area.

What was the public's reaction to the 'How well do you know your area?' quiz when it was launched?

The public's reaction was overwhelmingly positive, with a quarter of a million people playing the quiz within 48 hours of its launch, leading to discussions on social media and even prompting people to challenge politicians with the quiz.

How did the speaker conclude the importance of statistics in our lives?

The speaker concluded that statistics are not just the science of uncertainty but the science of us, emphasizing that we should be fascinated by numbers because they relate to our collective experiences and perceptions.

Outlines

00:00

📊 Numeracy Skills Crisis and the Power of Statistics

The speaker begins by highlighting the numeracy crisis in the UK, revealed by a 2003 government survey that showed nearly half of the working-age adults lacked basic numeracy skills. Despite policy changes and investments, the situation worsened slightly by 2011. The speaker emphasizes that numeracy is not just an English issue, with the OECD reporting similar challenges in other countries, including the USA. The speaker challenges the false dichotomy that people are either good with numbers or not, arguing that everyone can be inspired by numbers. They introduce statistics as a tool to engage with numbers, despite its reputation as the less favored part of mathematics. The speaker shares their personal journey from disliking statistics to appreciating its relevance and power in understanding societal trends and individual perceptions.

05:03

🌍 Perception vs. Reality: Global Numeracy and Demographic Misconceptions

The speaker discusses global numeracy issues, particularly among young people, using OECD data that shows nearly 40% of US youth and over 20% in several other countries have low numeracy skills. They then shift focus to the disconnect between public perception and statistical reality, exemplified by Ipsos MORI surveys. These surveys reveal significant misperceptions, such as vastly overestimating the percentage of Muslims in England and Wales, and the rate of teenage pregnancies. The speaker extends this discussion to other countries, like Saudi Arabia and Japan, where similar misperceptions exist regarding obesity and rural living, respectively. The speaker attributes these misperceptions to individual experiences and media influences, and emphasizes the importance of accurate intuitive statistical understanding for effective decision-making.

10:04

🎯 Localizing Statistics: A Community Engagement Experiment

The speaker recounts their initiative to create a local statistics quiz to gauge people's knowledge of their immediate communities, using census data. The quiz was designed to be accessible, avoiding complex numerical terms and inspired by Otto Neurath's isotypes for visual representation. The speaker shares their experience of testing the quiz with an audience, noting the common tendency to underestimate or overestimate based on personal biases rather than data. Despite the census data being a few years old, the speaker was pleasantly surprised by the public's engagement with the quiz, which even led to the temporary shutdown of the statistics website due to high traffic. The speaker concludes by emphasizing that even those proficient in numbers, like the national statistician and a renowned journalist, scored poorly on the quiz, illustrating that statistics can surprise and inspire everyone, and should be seen as the science of understanding ourselves and our communities.

Keywords

💡Numeracy

Numeracy refers to the ability to understand and work with numbers. In the context of the video, it is highlighted as a critical skill that many adults in the UK lack, as evidenced by the survey that found nearly half of the working-age adults did not possess Level 1 numeracy skills, which includes basic operations with fractions, percentages, and decimals. The video emphasizes the importance of numeracy for life and societal progress, and it is presented as a skill that needs improvement across various countries.

💡Level 1 Numeracy Skills

Level 1 numeracy skills denote a basic level of mathematical competence, typically associated with a low-end GCSE score. The video uses this term to underscore the alarming statistic that a significant portion of the UK population struggles with fundamental mathematical concepts. These skills are essential for daily life and are indicative of a broader educational and societal issue.

💡Statistics

Statistics, as discussed in the video, is the discipline concerned with the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and organization of data. The speaker argues that while statistics may have an image problem, they are crucial for understanding societal trends and individual perceptions. The video uses statistics to demonstrate the gap between public perception and actual data, such as the overestimation of the Muslim population in the UK.

💡Perception vs. Reality

This concept contrasts how people believe things are with how they actually are, based on statistical data. The video provides several examples where there is a significant discrepancy between public perception (e.g., the percentage of Muslims in the UK) and the reality provided by official statistics. This gap is used to highlight the need for better numeracy and statistical literacy.

💡Ipsos MORI Survey

The Ipsos MORI survey mentioned in the video is a real-world example of how public perception can differ greatly from statistical reality. The survey asked people to estimate various demographic facts about their countries, revealing widespread misperceptions. This serves to illustrate the video's theme that people are often poor intuitive statisticians and that engaging with data can be both enlightening and surprising.

💡Data Visualization

Data visualization is the graphical representation of information and data. The video discusses the use of statistical graphics and the design of a quiz to make data more accessible and engaging. The speaker programmed these graphics to help people better understand and interact with statistical data, emphasizing the power of visual tools in communicating complex information.

💡OECD

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organization that works to build better policies for better lives. In the video, OECD figures are cited to compare numeracy levels among young people across different countries, highlighting the global nature of the numeracy challenge and the need for international comparison and cooperation.

💡Misconceptions

Misconceptions refer to incorrect or false ideas or beliefs. The video discusses how people have various misconceptions about their societies, as revealed by surveys and quizzes. These misconceptions are used to argue for the importance of improving statistical literacy and the need for people to engage more critically with data.

💡Gamification

Gamification is the application of game-design elements and principles in non-game contexts. The video describes how the speaker gamified the presentation of statistical data through a quiz, making it more engaging and fun. This approach was successful in getting people to interact with data voluntarily, demonstrating the potential of gamification to enhance learning and public engagement.

💡Isotypes

Isotypes, short for 'international system of typographic picture education,' are a method of representing data using simple, repeating icons. The video mentions that the speaker was inspired by Otto Neurath's isotypes when designing the quiz, using them to represent quantities without relying on complex numerical terms. This method is used to make statistics more accessible and understandable to a wider audience.

💡Census Data

Census data refers to the information collected through a census, which is the process of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. In the video, the speaker uses census data to create a local area quiz, allowing people to test their knowledge of their own communities. This use of census data exemplifies how statistical information can be made relevant and engaging at a local level.

Highlights

In 2003, the UK government found that 47 out of 100 working-age adults lacked basic numeracy skills.

Despite policy changes and investments, in 2011 the numeracy skills figure rose to 49%.

Numeracy is crucial for life, and the 21st century requires comfort with numbers.

The USA has nearly 40% of young people with low numeracy, with seven OECD countries above 20%.

The Netherlands and Korea have single-digit percentages of people with low numeracy.

The speaker believes the dichotomy between those comfortable with numbers and those who aren't is false.

Statistics, despite its image problem, is about us as a group and can be fascinating.

The speaker was inspired by statistics to create visual representations of data.

Ipsos MORI surveys reveal significant gaps between public perception and statistical reality.

People are generally poor intuitive statisticians, as shown by studies on perception gaps.

Media's focus on exceptions rather than the norm can skew perceptions.

The speaker created a quiz to gauge local area knowledge using census data.

The quiz was designed to be accessible, avoiding complex numerical terms.

The quiz was so popular it brought down the statistics website due to high traffic.

The quiz sparked discussions and made people engage with data in a fun way.

Even those proficient with numbers, like the national statistician, scored low on the quiz.

Statistics should be seen as the science of us, inspiring and surprising everyone.

Transcripts

Translator: Camille Martínez Reviewer: Krystian Aparta

Back in 2003,

the UK government carried out a survey.a

And it was a survey that measured levels of numeracy

in the population.

And they were shocked to find out

that for every 100 working age adults in the country,

47 of them lacked Level 1 numeracy skills.

Now, Level 1 numeracy skills -- that's low-end GCSE score.

It's the ability to deal with fractions, percentages and decimals.

So this figure prompted a lot of hand-wringing in Whitehall.

Policies were changed,

investments were made,

and then they ran the survey again in 2011.

So can you guess what happened to this number?

It went up to 49.

(Laughter)

And in fact, when I reported this figure in the FT,

one of our readers joked and said,

"This figure is only shocking to 51 percent of the population."

(Laughter)

But I preferred, actually, the reaction of a schoolchild

when I presented at a school this information,

who raised their hand and said,

"How do we know that the person who made that number

isn't one of the 49 percent either?"

(Laughter)

So clearly, there's a numeracy issue,

because these are important skills for life,

and a lot of the changes that we want to introduce in this century

involve us becoming more comfortable with numbers.

Now, it's not just an English problem.

OECD this year released some figures looking at numeracy in young people,

and leading the way, the USA --

nearly 40 percent of young people in the US have low numeracy.

Now, England is there too,

but there are seven OECD countries with figures above 20 percent.

That is a problem, because it doesn't have to be that way.

If you look at the far end of this graph,

you can see the Netherlands and Korea are in single figures.

So there's definitely a numeracy problem that we want to address.

Now, as useful as studies like these are,

I think we risk herding people inadvertently into one of two categories;

that there are two kinds of people:

those people that are comfortable with numbers, that can do numbers,

and the people who can't.

And what I'm trying to talk about here today

is to say that I believe that is a false dichotomy.

It's not an immutable pairing.

I think you don't have to have tremendously high levels of numeracy

to be inspired by numbers,

and that should be the starting point to the journey ahead.

And one of the ways in which we can begin that journey, for me,

is looking at statistics.

Now, I am the first to acknowledge that statistics has got somewhat

of an image problem.

(Laughter)

It's the part of mathematics

that even mathematicians don't particularly like,

because whereas the rest of maths is all about precision and certainty,

statistics is almost the reverse of that.

But actually, I was a late convert to the world of statistics myself.

If you'd asked my undergraduate professors

what two subjects would I be least likely to excel in after university,

they'd have told you statistics and computer programming,

and yet here I am, about to show you some statistical graphics

that I programmed.

So what inspired that change in me?

What made me think that statistics was actually an interesting thing?

It's really because statistics are about us.

If you look at the etymology of the word statistics,

it's the science of dealing with data

about the state or the community that we live in.

So statistics are about us as a group,

not us as individuals.

And I think as social animals,

we share this fascination about how we as individuals relate to our groups,

to our peers.

And statistics in this way are at their most powerful

when they surprise us.

And there's been some really wonderful surveys carried out recently

by Ipsos MORI in the last few years.

They did some really interesting stuff.

They did a survey of over 1,000 adults in the UK,

and said, for every 100 people in England and Wales,

how many of them are Muslim?

Now the average answer from this survey,

which was supposed to be representative of the total population ...

was 24.

That's what people thought.

British people think 24 out of every 100 people in the country are Muslim.

Now, official figures reveal that figure to be about five.

So there's this big variation between what we think, our perception,

and the reality as given by statistics.

And I think that's interesting.

What could possibly be causing that misperception?

And I was so thrilled with this study,

I started to take questions out in presentations. I was referring to it.

Now, I did a presentation

at St. Paul's School for Girls in Hammersmith,

and I had an audience rather like this,

except it was comprised entirely of sixth-form girls.

And I said, "Girls,

how many teenage girls do you think the British public think

get pregnant every year?"

And the girls were apoplectic when I said

the British public think that 15 out of every 100 teenage girls

get pregnant in the year.

And they had every right to be angry,

because in fact, I'd have to have closer to 200 dots

before I could color one in,

in terms of what the official figures tell us.

And rather like numeracy, this is not just an English problem.

Ipsos MORI expanded the survey in recent years to go across the world.

And so, they asked Saudi Arabians,

for every 100 adults in your country,

how many of them are overweight or obese?

And the average answer from the Saudis was just over a quarter.

That's what they thought.

Just over a quarter of adults are overweight or obese.

The official figures show, actually, it's nearer to three-quarters.

(Laughter)

So again, a big variation.

And I love this one: they asked in Japan, they asked the Japanese,

for every 100 Japanese people,

how many of them live in rural areas?

The average was about a 50-50 split, just over halfway.

They thought 56 out of every 100 Japanese people lived in rural areas.

The official figure is seven.

So extraordinary variations, and surprising to some,

but not surprising to people who have read the work

of Daniel Kahneman, for example, the Nobel-winning economist.

He and his colleague, Amos Tversky, spent years researching this disjoint

between what people perceive and the reality,

the fact that people are actually pretty poor intuitive statisticians.

And there are many reasons for this.

Individual experiences, certainly, can influence our perceptions,

but so, too, can things like the media reporting things by exception,

rather than what's normal.

Kahneman had a nice way of referring to that.

He said, "We can be blind to the obvious" --

so we've got the numbers wrong --

"but we can be blind to our blindness about it."

And that has enormous repercussions for decision making.

So at the statistics office while this was all going on,

I thought this was really interesting.

I said, this is clearly a global problem,

but maybe geography is the issue here.

These were questions that were all about, how well do you know your country?

So in this case, it's how well do you know 64 million people?

Not very well, it turns out. I can't do that.

So I had an idea,

which was to think about this same sort of approach

but to think about it in a very local sense.

Is this a local?

If we reframe the questions and say,

how well do you know your local area,

would your answers be any more accurate?

So I devised a quiz:

How well do you know your area?

It's a simple Web app.

You put in a post code

and then it will ask you questions based on census data

for your local area.

And I was very conscious in designing this.

I wanted to make it open to the widest possible range of people,

not just the 49 percent who can get the numbers.

I wanted everyone to engage with it.

So for the design of the quiz,

I was inspired by the isotypes

of Otto Neurath from the 1920s and '30s.

Now, these are methods for representing numbers

using repeating icons.

And the numbers are there, but they sit in the background.

So it's a great way of representing quantity

without resorting to using terms like "percentage,"

"fractions" and "ratios."

So here's the quiz.

The layout of the quiz is,

you have your repeating icons on the left-hand side there,

and a map showing you the area we're asking you questions about

on the right-hand side.

There are seven questions.

Each question, there's a possible answer between zero and a hundred,

and at the end of the quiz,

you get an overall score between zero and a hundred.

And so because this is TEDxExeter,

I thought we would have a quick look at the quiz

for the first few questions of Exeter.

And so the first question is:

For every 100 people, how many are aged under 16?

Now, I don't know Exeter very well at all, so I had a guess at this,

but it gives you an idea of how this quiz works.

You drag the slider to highlight your icons,

and then just click "Submit" to answer,

and we animate away the difference between your answer and reality.

And it turns out, I was a pretty terrible guess: five.

How about the next question?

This is asking about what the average age is,

so the age at which half the population are younger

and half the population are older.

And I thought 35 -- that sounds middle-aged to me.

(Laughter)

Actually, in Exeter, it's incredibly young,

and I had underestimated the impact of the university in this area.

The questions get harder as you go through.

So this one's now asking about homeownership:

For every 100 households, how many are owned with a mortgage or loan?

And I hedged my bets here,

because I didn't want to be more than 50 out on the answer.

(Laughter)

And actually, these get harder, these questions,

because when you're in an area, when you're in a community,

things like age -- there are clues to whether a population is old or young.

Just by looking around the area, you can see it.

Something like homeownership is much more difficult to see,

so we revert to our own heuristics,

our own biases about how many people we think own their own homes.

Now the truth is, when we published this quiz,

the census data that it's based on was already a few years old.

We've had online applications that allow you to put in a post code

and get statistics back for years.

So in some senses,

this was all a little bit old and not necessarily new.

But I was interested to see what reaction we might get

by gamifying the data in the way that we have,

by using animation

and playing on the fact that people have their own preconceptions.

It turns out, the reaction was, um ...

was more than I could have hoped for.

It was a long-held ambition of mine to bring down a statistics website

due to public demand.

(Laughter)

This URL contains the words "statistics," "gov" and "UK,"

which are three of people's least favorite words in a URL.

And the amazing thing about this was that the website came down

at quarter to 10 at night,

because people were actually engaging with this data

of their own free will,

using their own personal time.

I was very interested to see

that we got something like a quarter of a million people

playing the quiz within the space of 48 hours of launching it.

And it sparked an enormous discussion online, on social media,

which was largely dominated

by people having fun with their misconceptions,

which is something that I couldn't have hoped for any better,

in some respects.

I also liked the fact that people started sending it to politicians.

How well do you know the area you claim to represent?

(Laughter)

And then just to finish,

going back to the two kinds of people,

I thought it would be really interesting to see

how people who are good with numbers would do on this quiz.

The national statistician of England and Wales, John Pullinger,

you would expect he would be pretty good.

He got 44 for his own area.

(Laughter)

Jeremy Paxman -- admittedly, after a glass of wine ...

36.

Even worse.

It just shows you that the numbers can inspire us all.

They can surprise us all.

So very often, we talk about statistics

as being the science of uncertainty.

My parting thought for today is:

actually, statistics is the science of us.

And that's why we should be fascinated by numbers.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)