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Media’s ability to understand is limited….

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Sorry, but recently the complete NON understanding of statistics by the media has happened too many times…

When Mary Kom was playing her opponent the commentators kept saying ‘Mary Kom has not lost to the same opponent twice’. 

On Sunday, 26th August, 2012, when India played Australia in the Under 19 World cup, the commentators kept saying ‘Australia has never lost in the final’.

The commentators do not understand the difference between:

“Has not happened” and “Cannot happen”.

Cannot happen is ‘A cow gave birth to a cat’ – this is an IMPOSSIBLE event, or an event that CANNOT happen.

Australia had not lost till the 26th of August, 2012. However on 26th aug that is over. Now you cannot say that stupid statement AS IF ‘HAS NOT LOST’ meant  

‘therefore they cannot lose’ – this is the impression they were giving. So stupid.

A zoo in Cologne, Germany – 700 years old – lost a tiger keeper to a tiger attack. Imagine saying ‘In our 700 year history, no tiger has escaped, no tiger can kill….so we do not need a cage’….LOL

OMG Statistics will you please explain YOURSELF to our great media?

Now the same set of people do mutual fund predictions. God send a tiger to them. We need more tigers and fewer analysts. Sorry. 

 

 

11 thoughts on “Media’s ability to understand is limited….”

  1. Jai Ho

    Times Now uses terms like “Rapist cop did this” “Rapist man did that” “Molester did this” When the person is only an accused and not yet convicted. This is gross violation of a human beings rights. The right thing would be to use the term “Alleged rapist” or “Alleged Molestor”

    The media which is the fourth pillar of democracy is as corrupt as the other three.

    Filter out what u see and hear on TV carefully and keep ur own opinion.

  2. Bhushan

    Well, I look at differently. Commentators (or media) are just stating some data and I do not think that ANYONE who hears or watches will beleive that same probablity will continue. During world cup cricket final last year, they kept on saying that no host country has ever won. Some commentators also added “can India change that today?” we changed history. During struggle for Independence, Gandhi was told that no country has ever won freedom by passive movement like non-voilence. His response was ‘You read history and I am here to create history’.

  6. pravin

    digressing completely away from the story : my prediction: india will not win even one medal in olympics boxing from now on .
    reason?
    a)head protection is not going to be allowed from 2016
    b)professional boxers will be now allowed.
    there is no chance in hell a vijender or devendro can even win a round against the pacquio and klitschkos of the world.

  7. Suresh

    more tigers … ROFL. Haven’t had such a belly aching laugh in ages. thanks.
    As Mahesh said, Taleb all over..

  8. subra

    Mahesh, Aditya, Suresh

    When Taleb said ‘sensible soundbytes’ is an oxymoron…God this is such a great statement. Wish I had made it. LOL

  10. john

    Is it just meant as a joke of an article or were you really meaning it seriously? How does someone saying .. it has never happened until now .. automatically mean it can never happen?

    I, for one, would never understand that as being the case. And how does Statistics come into the picture here. In fact, if anything, mathematically the probability of something repeating based on the results until now, will be closer to the trend that has been displayed by the results until now.

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