David Spiegelhalter on the Importance of Statistics

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Why are stats so important and why do people not know enough about them? And that’s coupled with this kind of assault on the nature of facts and evidence and the famous line people have had enough of experts.

DAVID SPIEGELHALTER, AUTHOR, “THE ART OF STATISTICS”: Yes, exactly. We live in a – at the age of data and apart from the traditional data of official statistics and scientific research. We’ve got this massive explosion in data science, machine learning and AI, terribly exciting time. And in this age of data, it’s important to realize that the data doesn’t speak for itself. You don’t just stick the data in outcomes and answer, it requires skill and understanding and care to wring out the meaning from the data, to draw the correct conclusions with the appropriate caution and humility.

AMANPOUR: So let’s just globally just assert that data and doing what you’re saying it should do put it in context, wring out the meaning affects just about every aspect of daily life, political life, scientific life, right?

SPIEGELHALTER: Everything. Everything from the decisions we make about our health, in our finance, in our families, in our future and, of course, how we vote, it all depends on people giving us information. And a lot of that information is in terms of numbers, how big something is. That’s what all of those numbers are, they just tell you how big something. Is it small? Is it big? Should we worry about it? Shouldn’t we worry about it?

AMANPOUR: And, again, I think people are desperate in this age of fake news and everybody competing to be the expert and peddling whatever, sometimes rubbish. People want to know where they can get the best and how they can actually trust the data and the stats.

SPIEGELHALTER: Exactly. It’s all to do with trustworthiness of numbers and usually when I hear a number I’m very suspicious, because I think that person is trying to persuade me of something. They’re trying to change my mind. Usually, they’re trying to make you frightened about something, make you anxious to influence your opinion. They’re not actually just informing me. And so I think it’s an essential skill in order to be able to understand how numbers can be used and misused and to be able to question them.