2009-03-29|TVO's Big Ideas: Direction of Logic in Statistics
Dr. Merv Mosher
I just wanted to say how impressed I was to hear your statistics lecture on TVO's Big Ideas programme. Your emphasis on evaluation of scientific evidence is greatly appreciated, especially your insight into pseudo-science.
I would like to add the importance of the direction of logic. For example, statement "U of T students have higher I.Q. than York students." may be true if you take the average, but it is a totally bogus argument for individual comparison. My observation is that most prejudices stem from the failure to understand the direction of logic, as you can substitute "U of T/York graduates" with "men/women", "blacks/whites/reds", "Christians/Muslims/Jews/Hindus", "Canadians/Americans/Russians/Indians/Chinese", etc.
Unfortunately, I would say that only about 5 % of the population are capable of critical thinking...
