R-ticulate

1Hypotheses, Variables, Data

In a world where information circulates at unprecedented speed and almost exclusively via the internet, often on indiscriminate platforms, it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between fact and fake, between true and false, and between evidence and opinion. One admittedly non‐spectacular, yet indispensable way to confidently plough our way through the jungle of those dichotomies is learning and understanding the basics of statistical thinking. Thinking statistically needs training, as it is not intuitive. Humans are particularly bad at ‘collecting’ data. For example, the perception of whether we had a ‘warm’ or ‘cold’ winter will depend on a wealth of subjective factors such as how much time someone has spent outdoors, and likely shows little correlation with the actual average temperature of that particular winter. Similarly, people perceive risks in life in an utterly ‘non‐statistical’ way. While, statistically, the largest risks for early death in most western countries are sugar intake and lack of exercise, we often perceive the risk of an airplane crashing or a great white shark attack as much more threatening to our lives. In fact, the mentioned risks are four to five orders of magnitude (about 100,000 times) apart!

Human perception is a notoriously bad statistician

In this introductory chapter, we will set the foundations for ‘statistical thinking’, and the most basic statistical skills, which are the pillars that scientific ...