TED: Peter Donnelly: How juries are fooled by statistics
Most people are not well versed in statistics and as a result have difficulty understanding regressions, distributions, and distinguishing random from non-random events; as noted in the talk:
We know that randomness, and uncertainty and chance are very much a part of our everyday life. It’s also true… that it’s very well documented that people get things wrong, they make errors in logic when reasoning with uncertainty.
This lecture helps to highlight the potential consequences of these cognitive errors.
Oxford mathematician Peter Donnelly reveals the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics — and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials.
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