I found this article on Gekoboard about Data Fallacies courtesy of a LinkedIn post from Jonathan Boymal at RMIT.
When it comes to false and incorrect information online you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Even if students track a Youtube video or FB post back to it’s source they can find themselves on a credible looking site with links to multiple seemingly valid research reports.
It’s only if you step out of the information funnel provided and look at other reputable sources do you see the problem. This is becoming more and more important as more businesses and individuals realise there is money to be made from outrage and misinformation. We can all think of events over the last couple of years that wouldn’t have happened if the people involved had better analytical skills.
For example the Publication Bias may be contributing to some of the Ivermectin misinformation.
“For every study that shows statistically significant results, there may have been many similar tests that were inconclusive. However, significant results are more interesting to read about and are therefore more likely to get published. Not knowing how many ‘boring’ studies were filed away impacts our ability to judge the validity of the results we read about. When a company claims a certain activity had a major positive impact on growth, other companies may have tried the same thing without success, so they don’t talk about it”.