War On The Bullsh*t: How to spot when DATA is lying to you

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

Society & Culture, Government, News, Politics

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2020

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

Why do we believe lies just because there’s a graph attached? How can we develop a sixth sense to detect statistical disinformation? Data scientist and University of Washington professor Jevin D West, co-author of Calling Bullsh*t: The Art Of Scepticism In A Data Driven World, talks to Ros Taylor about the warping of COVID statistics by selection bias… how our brains are built to fall victim to false correlation… Sigmund Freud on cocaine… and why sharing information as soon as you see it is like picking a sweet up of the street and eating it. “It’s almost as if data falls from the skies and lands on our desk, and we can’t question it. But we can.” “If there’s a rule, it’s share less, think more.” “If I wanted to gauge the average height of the population I wouldn’t go to an NBA game. That’s selection bias.” Presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producer Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved
0:05.5	photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.
0:11.8	Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?
0:13.0	I loved going to college.
0:14.0	It's good you can retrain and do something.
0:16.0	Yeah, yeah.
0:17.0	Let's talk about working, learning, saving and making the most of living longer.
0:22.0	Phoenix Group is the UK's largest long-term savings and retirement business.
0:28.0	Search Phoenix Group living longer.
0:30.0	Pets brings so much joy.
0:32.0	From those happy greetings at the door to the warm cuddles on the sofa
0:36.7	so give a little love back with dental life from Purina a range of delicious chues made for dogs and tasty snacks for cats that help clean and support your pets, teeth and gums, essential for their overall well-being and a happy, healthy life. They give you plenty of smiles so
0:55.3	look after theirs with dental life. more data visualizations in the past six months than I did in the previous six years
1:17.6	Bar charts heat maps logarithmic graphs in fact the most popular post on the COVID-19 blog that I added at the LSC is called
1:25.4	The Public Do Not Understand Logorhythmic graphs used to portray COVID-19.
1:30.1	And if you don't know the difference between a linear and a logarithmic graph, don't worry, you are very far from alone.
1:36.8	Data feels like it ought to be reliable, impartial, and ambiguous, but it can be none of those things and with me to talk about some of the
1:45.0	ways it can be manipulated to mislead us is Jevin D West the author with Carl T Bergstrom
1:51.2	of calling bullshit the art of skepticism in a data-driven world.
1:55.2	He's a data scientist and associate professor at the University of Washington.
2:00.0	Jervyn, welcome to the bunker.
2:01.8	Thanks so much for having me, Ross.
	...

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