Episode Details

Sometimes people do a study and find that a particular correlation is r = 0.2, or a particular effect size is d = 1.1. Then an article tries to “put this in context”. “The study found r = 0.2, which for context is about the same as the degree to which the number of spots on a dog affects its friskiness.”

But there are many statistics that are much higher than you would intuitively think, and many other statistics that are much lower than you would intuitively think. A dishonest person can use one of these for “context”, and then you will incorrectly think the effect is very high or very low.

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/attempts-to-put-statistics-in-context