5 votes

Can anyone recommend a specific type of statistics course?

I would like to find a good Statistics course to do for myself, and also to recommend to others, down the road ... one that specifically focuses on risk, and the discrepancy between actual statistical probability vs humans' intuitive sense of risk.

I recall a quote, which The Interwebs informs me right now, came from Albert A. Bartlett ... "The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race Is Man’s Inability To Understand the Exponential Function".

Alternately, Mark Twain popularized (but did not originate) the saying "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics".

That's the kind of course I'm looking for, that focuses on questions like how much should we actually worry about supervolcanoes, asteroid strikes, Covid 2.0, WWIII, Trump getting re-elected, etc.

There are two parts to this. One, people often (naturally, human nature, how our brains are wired to handle Risk) obsess about a short list of risks in life that are overblown, or appear to be more of a concern than they actually are.

The other part is, some things have a very small risk of actually happening, but when considered in conjunction with the potential consequences (asteroid strikes, WWIII, global pandemic), are still worthy of aggressive efforts to prevent ... and people often focus on the first element (statistically unlikely) and dismiss or overlook the second piece (devastating consequences).

Anyway, stuff like that ... ideally an actual, hands-on MOOC-type Statistics course, but even a good youtube video or blog article would suffice.

As usual, thanks in advance.

14 comments

  1. [5]
    cfabbro
    (edited )
    Link
    At least to my layman's ears it sounds like you might actually be looking for something more akin to a psychology course on cognitive biases and decision-making, rather than a statistics one. As...

    At least to my layman's ears it sounds like you might actually be looking for something more akin to a psychology course on cognitive biases and decision-making, rather than a statistics one.

    As for where to find something like that, I have found Coursera to be a pretty good place to start looking. And IMO this Behavioral Finance course from Duke University actually seems to match your criteria reasonably well despite its financial focus.

    About this Course

    We make thousands of decisions every day. Do I cross the road now, or wait for the oncoming truck to pass? Should I eat fries or a salad for lunch? How much should I tip the cab driver? We usually make these decisions with almost no thought, using what psychologists call “heuristics” – rules of thumb that enable us to navigate our lives. Without these mental shortcuts, we would be paralyzed by the multitude of daily choices. But in certain circumstances, these shortcuts lead to predictable errors – predictable, that is, if we know what to watch out for. Did you know, for example, that we are naturally biased towards selling investments that are doing well for us, but holding on to those that are doing poorly? Or that we often select sub-optimal insurance payment plans, and routinely purchase insurance that we don’t even need? And why do so many of us fail to enroll in our employer’s corporate retirement plans, even when the employer offers to match our contributions?

    Behavioral finance is the study of these and dozens of other financial decision-making errors that can be avoided, if we are familiar with the biases that cause them. In this course, we examine these predictable errors, and discover where we are most susceptible to them. This course is intended to guide participants towards better financial choices. Learn how to improve your spending, saving, and investing decisions for the future.

    Skills you will gain

    Decision-Making - Behavioral Finance - Cognitive Bias - Behavioral Economics

    Edit: These sociology/international affairs courses, Global Systemic Risk (from Princeton) and Risk in Modern Society (from Leiden), may also interest you too.

    4 votes
    1. [4]
      Eric_the_Cerise
      Link Parent
      I am also looking at/for such things, yes ... but that's another day. Right now, I am definitely interested in the math and statistics of accurately assessing risk and probability, but in a...

      you might actually be looking for something more akin to a psychology course on cognitive biases and decision-making

      I am also looking at/for such things, yes ... but that's another day. Right now, I am definitely interested in the math and statistics of accurately assessing risk and probability, but in a context that looks at "accurate results" as opposed to our natural preconceptions.

      The course you linked does sound good and I may try it out. I am quite interested in things like that, and eg Freakonomics, Thinking, Fast and Slow, etc ... all good stuff, but yeah, right now, I literally want to learn more about the math involved in accurately assessing these things, rather than "just" pointing out human thinking defects.

      2 votes
      1. cfabbro
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        If that's the case then it sounds like you're actually just looking for some basic statistics courses, which are pretty easy to find. But if you want to get even more specific then Actuarial...

        If that's the case then it sounds like you're actually just looking for some basic statistics courses, which are pretty easy to find. But if you want to get even more specific then Actuarial Science might be another related discipline that you might want to look into, since probabilistic mathematical modeling of risk and uncertainty is its main focus. I am not aware of any freely available courses for that though since it's a highly specialized, cross-disciplinary field.

        3 votes
      2. [2]
        psi
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Perhaps you're interested in Bayesian statistics more generally? The central tenant of Bayesian statistics is that you must incorporate your priors when making predictions (i.e., use Bayes's...

        Perhaps you're interested in Bayesian statistics more generally? The central tenant of Bayesian statistics is that you must incorporate your priors when making predictions (i.e., use Bayes's theorem).

        Here's the typical example, explained in a few different sources (ordered from least to most math):

        More specifically, it sounds like you're interested in decision theory (try googling "introduction to decision theory risk"). As a lay starting point, you might consider the work of Eliezer Yudkowsky, e.g. "Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks". (Although this recommendation comes with the caveat that his personal framework, which he calls "timeless decision theory", might only be half-baked ).

        3 votes
        1. Eric_the_Cerise
          Link Parent
          Eliezer is the guy that finally managed to explain Bayes Theorum in a way I understood (although I see now he actually recommends another person's explanation as even better ... just found my...

          Eliezer is the guy that finally managed to explain Bayes Theorum in a way I understood (although I see now he actually recommends another person's explanation as even better ... just found my morning reading). Also, his Harry Potter fan fiction should be required reading in primary schools. I really wanted to love his old Less Wrong site, but it's just weird.

          2 votes
  2. [3]
    Wulfsta
    Link
    Mathematics usually isn’t contextualized like this, just take a basic stats course. Have you done any calculus classes?

    Mathematics usually isn’t contextualized like this, just take a basic stats course. Have you done any calculus classes?

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      Eric_the_Cerise
      Link Parent
      Calc and statistics, both, but too many decades ago to remember anything. Time for a do-over.

      Calc and statistics, both, but too many decades ago to remember anything. Time for a do-over.

      1 vote
      1. Wulfsta
        Link Parent
        Make sure you have a thorough understanding of integration, understanding statistics will be much easier.

        Make sure you have a thorough understanding of integration, understanding statistics will be much easier.

        1 vote
  3. [2]
    stu2b50
    Link
    I'll echo others in that I don't think many, if any, stats courses would focus on that. You're looking for gaining an intuition of statistics, but a) that's mostly gained through experience...

    That's the kind of course I'm looking for, that focuses on questions like how much should we actually worry about supervolcanoes, asteroid strikes, Covid 2.0, WWIII, Trump getting re-elected, etc.

    I'll echo others in that I don't think many, if any, stats courses would focus on that. You're looking for gaining an intuition of statistics, but a) that's mostly gained through experience working in statistics b) intuition in the end is not anything initofitself within the field - it's a means to an end so you can work towards using more rigorous proofs and techniques to prove your conclusion.

    If you want to gain a intuition of probability, honestly I think Poker is a great way if you play at least semi-seriously. There's few opportunities where you quite literally get to roll the dice and observe the results thousands of times a session. Trump winning in 2016 was about the odds per 538 of a flush draw on the river - as a Poker player, the pot odds on a flush draw are usually enough to bet for. So a Poker player would never eschew that chance, even if many people interpreted it as 0%.

    4 votes
    1. Eric_the_Cerise
      Link Parent
      Thanks ... if such a course doesn't exist, I may just have to (re-)learn statistics well enough to make that course, because it really should exist. I took statistics in ... high school, or first...

      Thanks ... if such a course doesn't exist, I may just have to (re-)learn statistics well enough to make that course, because it really should exist.

      I took statistics in ... high school, or first year of college (wow, I can't even remember that ... imagine how much I remember from the actual class). At the time, I was into D&D (still am), and I was endlessly fascinated by the statistical probabilities of the results of rolling 4d6, discarding the lowest number and adding up the other three. The chance of rolling either a 3 or an 18 is simple to calculate, but it gets tricky in the middle.

      I was already writing (simple) computer programs in the early '80s to simulate those dice rolls thousands of times to generate the probabilities empirically...

      1 vote
  4. [3]
    cmccabe
    Link
    Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky have some interesting (and highly decorated) work on cognitive biases related to risk. I’m not sure that’s exactly what you’re looking for because it’s not a stats...

    Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky have some interesting (and highly decorated) work on cognitive biases related to risk. I’m not sure that’s exactly what you’re looking for because it’s not a stats course, but the subject of cognitive biases seems to me what you’re asking about. The subject of behavioral economics has a lot on this topic as well, and experimental economists (many of them influenced by Kahneman and Tversky) have done some interesting work to build up empirical data.

    3 votes
    1. [2]
      Eric_the_Cerise
      Link Parent
      Yeah, I actually just referenced him in my previous response. I love his book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

      Daniel Kahneman

      Yeah, I actually just referenced him in my previous response. I love his book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

      2 votes
      1. cmccabe
        Link Parent
        Good point. That is a great book!

        Good point. That is a great book!

        3 votes