If we don’t understand the statistics, we’re likely to be badly mistaken about the way the world is. It is all too easy to convince ourselves that whatever we’ve seen with our own eyes is the whole truth; it isn’t. Understanding causation is tough even with good statistics, but hopeless without them. And yet, if we understand only the statistics, we understand little. We need to be curious about the world that we see, hear, touch, and smell, as well as the world we can examine through a spreadsheet. My second piece of advice, then, is to try to take both perspectives—the worm’s-eye view as
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