How We’re Fooled By Statistics

What people said

np422 · 2015-03 · Strong recommendation

Or perhaps it's just the old phrase "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" that is appropriate once again? Veritasium explains it better than me. Please watch [VIDEO]

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divan · 2025-04 · Recommendation

> results are so obviously and immediately measurable Ehm… not really – especially not the "obviously" part :) Controlled or even abusive coaching can sometimes lead to better short-term results, but often at the cost of athletes’ mental health and long-term performance. What’s worse, coaching culture in many countries falls victim to the "regression to the mean" fallacy. I’m sure HN readers are familiar with it, but most coaches aren’t – and they’re not trained to adjust their intuition accordingly. Coaches tend to praise athletes when they perform well and criticize them when they don’t. But statistically, if an athlete has an unusually good day in practice, they’re likely to perform worse next time. And if they’re having a rough day, odds are they’ll improve next time. That’s just the nature of sports practice. This creates a repeating pattern: praise followed by worse results, and criticism followed by improvement. Over time, this becomes a learned behavior pattern – reinforced by the environment and by other coaches who interpret it as validation of their approach. Derek from Veritasium has a great video on this: [VIDEO]

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javajosh · 2014-08 · Recommendation

>Recognizing people's successes and what they are doing well is a 1000% more effective than harping on what people have messed up Yes, this is (verifiably) true. One must be aware, however, that positive feedback is usually going to be ineffective, thanks to natural "regression to the mean" effects, elucidated wonderfully in this Veritasium video[1]. (The point, in the end though, is that performance is going to statistically improve if people do worse than average, and do worse if they do really well, regardless of the feedback you give them", which is called "regression to the mean". The net effect is that you might get a false positive for negative feedback, and a false negative for positive feedback if you don't account for the natural tension that brings everything back to average.) [1] [VIDEO]

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