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More than half of adults in U.S. say they lack basic statistical understanding (www.psu.edu)
submitted 4 days ago by beep@piefed.world to c/science@mander.xyz
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/scientificarticles/p/1359566/more-than-half-of-adults-in-u-s-say-they-lack-basic-statistical-understanding

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[-] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

Beyond a certain size, we lose the ability to intuitively understand numbers.

Examples? Sure:

  1. how many people misunderatood the scale of the undertaking of trying to find mh370 in the ocean without any detailed guidance
  2. how far billionaires are from the average person (i once argued that just having a comfortable home and a computer or cellphone put one comfortably in the top earners in the world - people dont understand the sheer scale of poverty or income inequality as it applies to the global situation)
  3. how only the top ~100 atp/ wta tennis players actually make enough to comfortably cover basic tour costs
  4. how absolutely vast the universe is. Voyager is slightly over a billion km from the earth rn, and it only means it has travelled a light day from the time it was launched

Feel free to add your own

[-] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 points 18 hours ago

The odds of winning most lotteries vastly exceed getting hit by lightning more than once.

The Fermi paradox and alien sightings is entirely explained by the inability of the human mind to understand one light year.

this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2026
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