Discuss some of the ways in which statistics can be used or misused in different areas of knowledge, to assist or mislead us

Authors Avatar by kslove (student)

Krishna ShuklaTOK ESSAY #5grade 12

Question: Statistics can be very helpful in providing a powerful interpretation of reality, but also can be used to distort our understanding. Discuss some of the ways in which statistics can be used or misused in different areas of knowledge, to assist or mislead us, and how we can determine whether to accept the statistical evidence that is presented to us.

Krishna Shukla

Grade 12

TOK essay

Word count:

From my vantage point, statistics refer to the manipulation of numbers to summarise, or simplify the perception of certain scenarios. However, the thin line between objectivity and subjectivity when incorporating the use of statistics marks the fulcrum between accuracy and inaccuracy, and furthermore relates to the reliability of their application. Objectivity refers to the perception that results from observable situations regardless of personal interpretations while subjectivity gives room for such interpretations to be made with human intervention. Raw statistics are uninfluenced by the human intervention due to the fact that they solely incorporate the use of universally acclaimed numbers. Obviously this is with respect to the fact that the ‘human’ nature that humans possess is cut out of the picture of the genesis of a statistic. That is to say that the two major assumptions for purity of raw statistics in colloquial terms is that statistics, in an instance are manifested by robots and the subjectivity of the scenario is limited to the choice of subject area in which the statistic is made. Since the former is generally not the case, it gives rise to the requirement that we need to initially critic the accuracy of a statistic and in turn determine whether or not to accept a particular statistic. We need to develop a means by which to filter whether statistical evidence or data analysis through statistics can be tested for reliability. Overall statistics are not always reliable due to the human intervention and various methods of proof need to be used to determine their reliability.

Numbers are one of the few things that people, regardless of ethnicity, cultural background or personal traits, agree upon. Basics operations like addition and its supplements are universal and this phenomenon has perpetuated into complex operators such as variance and standard deviation that are used in the calculation of statistics. However, in statistics, the manipulation of numbers leaves room for human intervention. I believe statistics do more harm than tell the truth due to several uncontrollable and controllable factors such as; geography, reliability of data, etc. By scrutinizing these factors, one can determine whether or not to accept statistical evidence. Such evidence has the most prominent use in the Human sciences, particularly psychology, History and ironically even in mathematics.

Join now!

In mathematics, although the operators are never wrong, human intervention can result into blurring of data. For example, this is seen when at times not all the variables are taken into account. A common advertisement cliché is,”90% of the women interviewed are satisfied with this weight loss supplement.” This may obey the tally rules in mathematics but isn’t entirely correct as relevant variables such as the number of people or the geographical region and standards of living in the areas where this data was tallied may have been ignored. One may argue that the statement in itself is not wrong ...

This is a preview of the whole essay