90%的人都无法理解的事是？（下） [美国媒体]

-------------译者：龙腾翻译总管-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

What is something that 90% of people don't seem to understand?

90%的人都无法理解的事是？（下）


-------------译者：花开花落花满天-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

Bas Leijser Writer mountaineer coffee addict student upxed 9h ago
Statistics.

统计数据。

Nine out of ten dentists recommend this answer.

十分之九的牙医会推荐这个答案。

Here is a pie chart that shows who will upvote this answer

这里有一个饼状图，其显示有谁会支持这个答案。



Statistics are often misleading manipulative or meaningless. In fact even the 90% from this question is in many cases a Potemkin number[1] a numerical façade.

统计数字往往具有误导性、操纵性或者说根本无意义。事实上，对这个问题的回答90%在很多情况下都只是一个虚假表面的数字问题。

Below you see two images of my upvotes in the last 6 days. On the left I use a linear scale (y-axis) and on the right a semi-logarithmic one. Using the picture on the right I can claim that my upvotes have been fairly consistent.

下面你可以看到在过去的六天里对我的回复（踩还是赞）的统计图表，左图我用的是线性刻度（y轴），右图我用的是半对数直线关系图。通过右图，我可以得出结论，大家对我回答的评判结果（正负）差不多是一致的。



Politicians do this all the time. They cherry-pick data.

政客们总是这么做，他们择优挑选数据。

Your country could be in a recession for 20 years but if your GDP increased by +2% compared to last year then you can easily make graphs that show this enormous improvement even though technically you’re still in a recession.

你的国家可能陷入20年的衰退期，但是如果你的GDP比去年上升2%，那么你可以很容易地用图表来展示这一巨大的进步，尽管在技术层面上（你的国家）还是处于经济衰退期。

There’s a famous quote by Andrew Lang:

安德鲁·朗格有一句名言：

Politicians use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-posts— for support rather than illumination. [2]

政客们使用统计数据的目的就像喝醉酒的人使用灯柱一样——是为了支撑其瘫软的身体而不是为了照明前进的道路。

-------------译者：花开花落花满天-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

Are you facing high unemployment rates? Are new elections coming up?

你面临高失业率吗？新的选举会到来吗？

Why not change the statistics a bit? Just count everyone with a part-time job as ‘employed’. Congratulations you have now successfully reduced the unemployment rate from 10% to 5%!

为什么不稍微改变下统计数据呢？只要把兼职的人都算入进“在岗职工”的范畴中。那么恭喜啊，你成功地把失业率从10%降到了5%！

This has seemingly been done in both the U.S. [3] and the U.K. [4]Although economists know the difference the general public does not. All they hear is a claim from a minister that the ‘unemployment rate is at a record low’.

美国和英国似乎都做过此类事。虽然经济学家知道公众并不明白这其中的差别。（公众）他们听到的都是同一个部长的陈词滥调，即“（我国）失业率再创历史新低。”

The picture below shows the difference between the standard unemployment rate and U-6 which also includes part-time workers.

下图展示了按正规标准统计得出的失业率和U-6调查结果得出的失业率之间的差异：
（U-6是指：包括失业人口、准待业人口、待业人口及兼职人口（由市场原因而从事兼职工作）数据在内的统计。）



Another good example of this is how politicians switch between using the mean and the median depending on what better suits their needs. They never show both and they never use the mode (mode = the value that appears most often).

另一个很好的例子就是政治家如何在平均值和中间值两者之间相互切换使用，这取决于两者谁更能满足他们的需求。他们从不同时显示两者数据，也从不使用那样的众数（众数=最常出现的数值）

Here is an image showing the difference: (source[6])

下图显示出其差异。



In case of a symmetrical distribution there is no difference. But when is wealth ever distributed symmetrically?

在对称分布的情况下没有差异，但是财富什么时候有对称分布过呢？

So as a politician you could easily claim that the mean (average) income per household is 50000 even though the median is actually 35000 and the mode could be 25000. Which means that there are a lot of poor people in your country.

因此，作为一个政客，你可以很轻易地对外宣称，平均每个家庭的收入高达50000，即使中位数是35000，而最常出现的数值是25000。这意味着你的国家有很多穷人。

 -------------译者：花开花落花满天-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

Another example is using rate of change over raw numbers. Saying ‘X is the fastest growing religion in the world’ sounds a lot more frightening than using the actual numbers. This is illustrated well by the following comic: (source:[7])

另一个例子就是使用原始数据的变化率。就好比说“X是世界上发展最快的宗教”这听起来比使用实际数字要可怕得多。下面的漫画插图很形象生动地诠释了这句话：



（A:You should check us out. We're the fastest-growing religion in the country.
   B:"Fastest-growing" is such a dubious claim.
   A：It's true! We grew by 85% over the past year.

（A:你应该看看我们，我们是国家发展最快的宗教。
B:“发展最快”这个说辞真是可疑。
A：这是真的，我们在过去的一年里增长了85%）

B:Hey Rob-wanna join my religion?
C:Sure whatever.

B：嘿，罗布，你想要加入我的宗教吗？
C：好啊。随便吧。

B:Welllooks like my religion grew by 100% this year.

B：哈哈，我的宗教今年貌似增长了100%

A:We have 38000 members!
B:Hope they're all ok with second place.）

A：（可是）我们有38000个成员！
B：那么，希望他们对自己位居第二还算满意。

Congratulations you made it to the end of this answer! Research has shown that people who have readthis answer live longer on average are more likely to recognize statistical bullshit and are human in 99% of all cases.

恭喜你！你已经阅览到这个问题的最后段！研究表明，读过这个答案的人平均活的更长久，更能识别统计废话，且99%的是人类。

 -------------译者：花开花落花满天-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

Dylan Woon Self-employed Educator Avid Learner. DylanWoon.com. Answered Sep 28
Here’s an important distinction everyone should know.

这里有一个大家都应该知道的很重要的区别。



Bob: So you want to lose fat? It’s simple. Just eat healthily and exercise daily.

鲍勃：所以你想减肥？这很简单。你只需要每天吃得健康，坚持锻炼身体就可以了。

John: That sounds really simple! I’ll implement them and be slim again in no time.

约翰：这听起来真的很简单！我会尽快这么做，然后很快就会回复苗条了。

(After a month)

（一个月后）

Bob: Hey how are you doing?

鲍勃：嗨，你过得好吗？

John: Not good. I’m not losing fat at all. It’s too hard to eat healthily and exercise daily. I wonder why you said it’s easy…

约翰：不好。我一点脂肪也没有减掉。要做到吃得健康，每天都锻炼身体实在太难了。我不晓得为啥你说那很容易（做到）.....

Bob: Wait John. I didn’t say it’s easy. I said it’s simple. While the concept of losing fat is simple it isn’t necessarily easy to make it happen.

鲍勃：等等，约翰。我可从没说过这很容易。我说的是简单。虽然减肥的概念很简单，但要做到这一点并不容易。

SIMPLE is different from EASY.

简单完全不同于容易。

Losing fat is simple - eat healthy exercise daily. 
But not necessarily easy to implement.

减掉脂肪很简单——每天吃得健康，坚持运动。
但这并不容易做到。

Trading is simple - buy low sell high. 
But not necessarily easy to implement.

交易很简单——低买高卖。
但这并不容易实现。

Creating startup is simple - identify needs fulfill them. 
But not necessarily easy to implement.

创建启动很简单——识别需求然后实现它们。
但这并不容易实施。

Understanding this profound distinction will allow us to perceive this world much more accurately.

理解这种深刻的差别将使我们更准确地认识这个世界。