
How to Read a Log Scale - Solstinox
https://blog.datawrapper.de/weeklychart-logscale/
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NicolasGorden
I often think that one of the biggest changes that could come would be the
mass adoption of through statistical analysis classes as part of graduate
programs.

There's far, far too many people I've know who just don't understand it.

I also see many forces working against it. For one, it'd show up the ignorance
of a lot of the academic world.

I've known high level people, like a MD, who simply didn't fully grasp some
basic concepts of statistical analysis (like P-value hacking, questioning
sample size, comparisons between raw numbers, etc)

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sukilot
Everyone in these industries takes statistics in college and maybe grad school
tool. The problem is (1) that statistics is hard math and these people aren't
math majors (2) if you do statistics correctly you can never say anything bold
with confidence, which kills your career in any field except statistics itself

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mhh__
In the sense that there are courses like _Physics for future presidents_ , it
must be possible to at least attune peoples bullshit receptors to some degree
- even if that is without going into the mathematics.

We now live in a time when media algorithmically shows you what you want to
see, and politicians have effectively worked out that truth is almost totally
unnecessary. Society will adapt, but it could end in disaster.

~~~
godelski
For example, one thing that most people don't get is that every measurement
has an assumption. If you don't know the assumption you may make bad
conclusions. Few people even ask this question when making measurements.

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saivan
I made this as well. Hopefully this helps too:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSwefZMyjV0&t=14s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSwefZMyjV0&t=14s)

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gforge
While I knew the concepts of log I first truly understood it when I started
looking at everything as log2. In hindsight I feel like a moron, obviously it
is about doubling and halving risks is what it's about (I'm an MD so
everything is a risk ratio in my field).

I remember a colegue that was presenting results during their defense of a
thesis where one risk ratio 0,45 and the other 2,1. I asked which effect was
biggest and they automatically replied 2,1. I'm pretty sure that 80%+ of my
colegues would make the same mistake. Everyone understands double/half - we
should try to teach people this as the word log is just too intimidating for
so many.

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WorldMaker
The word "logarithm" is an interesting accident of how they were calculated
for so long. Exponentiation is easy: at its core it's just repeated
multiplication. But doing the "opposite" is much harder, it is _not_ just,
say, repeated division. Some of the oldest algorithms were logarithms. Some of
the most complex algorithms an average person might study for a large swath of
history were algorithms.

One of the most complex functions a slide rule enabled was simply some
logarithms.

When such computations were hard and slow, people filled entire books with
logarithms tables. Multiple volumes sometimes filled entire stacks in early
engineering libraries.

I feel like this illustrates one of the biggest problems when we teach math
from a "pen and paper first" perspective: exponents are easy to teach with pen
and paper as soon as people are used to multiplication, logarithms which are
intricately linked to exponents (as the reverse relationship) get saved for
one of the last things to be taught, if they are taught at all, because not
only is teaching them with pen and paper hard, it's now even harder that slide
rules and logarithms tables are out of fashion, so a lot of teachers skip
them.

Computers make long slow calculations so much easier. We have the power to
give people some very deep visualizations into things like how directly
exponents and logarithms are related, we maybe shouldn't let the historic
complexity hide the visual simplicity so much when we teach these early
concepts. Logarithms are always going to feel complex and ugly to those that
study them with pen and paper alone. We have the technology to improve that.

