- [Voiceover] Good old statistics.
You have to appreciate statistics.
They're great at helping to organize data.
Now, the idea of this confidence in data,
well they give you different confidences depending on
is it a high confidence that
this pretty good reason
that everything fell at one point here.
Or is it low confidence
with a lot of variability.
But one thing to keep in mind about statistics,
depending on how statistics are presented
they can kind of
show the data in different ways,
depending on how the graph is shown.
Is the graph evenly spaced
across the whole plane.
Is it going one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven for instance.
Or is it going
two, four, six, eight
and also compressing everything.
The graph is meant to give you a picture
but depending on how
the picture is made
can also partially determine
what the statistics show.
What particular features are you looking for?
It's all based on what information was given,
as far as what the statistics can show.
When we start looking at this mass media again,
anecdotes from scientific evidence.
Basically an anecdote
is testimony
or unverified reports.
It's someone claiming to have seen
the Abominable Snowman maybe,
but they don't have pictures,
they don't have proof.
That would be an anecdotal report
because they're claiming it is
but there's no proof to show it happened.
Scientific evidence
is when you have the proof.
So if someone claimed to have found Big Foot
they have pictures of it,
they have
maybe a carcass from
an Abominable Snowman that has passed along.
The idea is though
there is something physical to show.
The difference of anecdotes
from scientific evidence.
Anecdotes, (mumbles)
say pretty much anything,
it's not verified.
Scientific evidence,
there's proof
through experimentation.
There's proof through physical evidence.
There's something that shows
that the statement is accurate.
Separation of facts and conclusions.
Conclusions,
is just basically one's judgement from the facts they have.
You conclude that
if you're looking at leaves on a tree
and they're orange and reds
and yellows,
the leaves have started to change colors.
Well the fact is
that tree has red leaves,
that tree has orange leaves,
that tree has yellow leaves.
Well the leaves are changing colors
so you conclude
or you make a conclusion
saying it must be Fall
because during Fall
leaves change color.
So if the judgement,
you made the judgement that it is Fall
based on the fact
of the leaves changing colors.
Now we start thinking about correlations and causations.
So gone through anecdotes and evidence,
we gone through
a bunch of different groupings here.
But when we start looking at the difference between
correlation and causation,
now two events may both occur at the same time
but not be related.
You could have one person
in one city
jump up an down.
Another person in a totally different city
at the exact same instant
could lie down.
Do they have anything to do with each other?
No.
You could look at a stream
running downhill,
down a mountain.
As that stream runs downhill
you can notice a leaf falls from a tree.
Do they relate at all?
No, not necessarily.
So therefore,
they are correlated
because they both occur at the same time
but they do not cause each other.
The running water did not cause the leaf to fall.
The leaf falling
did not cause the water to fall.
In the other example,
the person jumping
in one city
did not cause the person to lie down in another city.
Just like the person that lied down
didn't cause the person to jump
in a different city.
So here's ones that's kind of
a weird morbid one that comes out of the book but,
drownings and ice cream sales
both increase at the same time.
Well does that mean more people are drowning
because they're eating ice cream?
That doesn't make a lot a sense.
So they're correlated
because they both occur at the same time.
Typically you'll increase the amount of drownings
and increase the amount of ice cream sales
in the summer time.
Why?
They're correlated because they're both in summer,
same time
and both warm.
It's more common to go swimming when it's warm.
It's more common to eat ice cream when it's warm.
So they're correlated
by that same time,
probably same temperature idea
but neither one causes the other one.
So science is consistently
improving technology and the human condition.
Look at the life expectancy of individuals.
That's improving constantly based on technology.
So what'll happen is
you apply the technology
that was discovered
through scientific processes.
Think about some a the ways that
energy is produced nowadays.
You start thinking of solar production,
wind production,
geothermal production.
All these technologies
came about because of scientific discoveries.
Discoveries on the case of solar,
how to convert the sun's light
into an energy source.
Wind,
how to take the wind,
which is more of a older technology
and just cause it to spin a turbine
to generate energy.
Geothermal,
learning how to capture the heat
from the Earth and utilize it
in home environments
or business environments.
But there are limits.
There are physical explanations for the natural world.
Why is this rock hard?
Why is the wind blowing right now?
Why is this planet...
The problem is,
it cannot explain everything.
Science can help us make informed choices.
Science look at the facts,
it helps you draw your conclusions
but science can not always say why
someone's in a bad mood,
or why is this person happy right now.
Sometimes things are beyond limitation.
So science can be very very helpful
but it can't answer everything.
So as far as science and society,
just take a look.
Look around you,
see what you see around you
and know hey,
this is because of that invention
or this is because of this experimentation.
But just keep in mind,
when you see something in the mass media,
in the news,
on the internet,
just take a second to think
before you say "Oh it must be true."
Just stop, think,
be a little skeptical.
Just ask yourself,
"Well why are they saying that's true?
What's the sources behind it?"