[This
is part of the book: Basis Of Singaporean Spirit - People Power, click here to go to the main page]
The purpose of this
chapter is to highlight that broadly, there are 2 ways to validate a claim –
using logical analysis or statistical analysis.
Both methods are valid sciences and claims
made using either method are all valid (assuming you know all the assumptions
made).
There are differences in the methods and
there may be situation where one is preferred over the other, or a combination
of both is preferred.
Since this is a simple book for commoners,
I am not going into the details of the definition; instead, I will go through a
simple example to illustrate the point.
Imagine
yourself in a shopping mall.
When you see many people coming into the shopping
mall with wet umbrellas, it may strike you straightaway that it is currently
raining outside. You could arrive at this conclusion using either logical
analysis or statistical analysis.
For logical
analysis, you based your conclusion on a number of premises (or
assumptions). When these premises are true, the statement
(or claim) will be true. For example:
Premise
1: People will use umbrellas to go to shopping mall
when it is raining.
Premise
2: When an umbrella is used in the rain, it will be
wet.
Claim: When we see people bringing wet umbrellas into shopping mall, it
is raining outside.
For statistical
analysis, you may have interviewed many people who brought wet umbrellas
into shopping malls and obtained the following results:
Why people
bring wet umbrellas into shopping malls?
99% - It is raining
0.8% - Umbrella was dirty and it was washed
0.2% - Others
Claim: When people bring wet umbrellas into shopping malls, there is a
99% chance that it is raining outside.
One of the problems with logical analysis
is that the premises could be ill-formed. In this case, the umbrella could be
wet for other reasons, e.g. after being washed, which is not depicted in the logical
analysis.
One of the problems with statistical
analysis is in the representativeness of the sample. The people that were
pooled may not be representative and the statistics may not be appropriate to
be extrapolated for other situations.
No matter which analysis is used to make a
claim, one has to understand the potential limitations.
You may also compare logical analysis with statistical
analysis by imagining a domino as shown below.
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[This section is on Technical explanation which is removed from this online version]
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Many of us know the basic of statistical
analysis, such as average, median, etc. However, not many of us know about the
logical analysis above.
Logical analysis is an important tool for analysing
a claim because it served as an alternative as well as a complementary method
to validate a claim. One of the aspects of logical analysis is what I called
the "reflective
qualification".
For example, if leaders said a particular
thing is good, how do you know if it is really good? Well, by reflecting that
statement back onto themselves.
Imagine this: A president of a country
showed you some statistics on a survey of people, stating that more than 90%
are proud to volunteer for combat vocation[i]
and urge you to do the same.
Statistically, it sounded convincing and
you may even have the urge to volunteer for that.
Applying logical analysis with reflective
qualification, you will define the premise as "If combat vocation is really
that good, the president's son should also be in combat vocation".
However, if you look at the president's
son, who was medically fit, but was not in a combat vocation, you would be able
to see a different perspective of the situation and question the validity and
motivation of that statement.
Another application of logical analysis is
using what I called "logical contrasting". For example, if ministers provided
statistics stating that $5 a day is enough to live, but on the other hand, they
had demanded for over $3000 per day of salary, more than enough to support the
livelihood of 600 people (applying their statement), yet still claimed that
they are underpaid. With this contrast, what do you think is wrong?
And of course, let's apply logical analysis
together with statistical analysis on the statement that "you do not need
degree to be successful in life". Well, without a single doubt, that statement
is definitely true.
Anyway, let's apply the reflective
qualification to the ministers first. Assuming they have 4 children and
statistics showed that 25% of Singaporeans have a degree. If there are no
deliberate actions, statistically, we should see that the ministers will have 1
child who is a degree holder, while the rest of them are not (25% quota). Is
this the current situation? Or are all of them degree holders?
Now, let's apply statistical analysis for
the situation that all of those 4 children are all degree holders. That would
mean that there must be 16 people who are "not supposed" to have a degree (to
maintain the 25% quota).
So where do you think these 16 people should
come from?[ii]
What do you think is the motivation for them making such a statement? I don't
know, ask them.
Logical analysis is a very powerful tool to
enable you to see and question people's motivation of making the claims and
assess the validity of their statements.
Statistics is useful, but it has limitations,
worst, it is often misused by people for ulterior motives.
For the purpose of this book, logical
analysis is widely employed over statistical analysis mainly because
statistical analysis, although very useful, is subjected to a very high
probability of manipulation, either intentionally or unintentionally. [See
"Please Spare Us the Statistics" for more details]
In summary, you should always question the
basis of the assumptions of the statistics as well as employ logical analysis
in order to have a complete assessment of the situation.
It is only when every one of the People
understands and able to apply logical analysis, would their leaders start to
think twice before they say or do anything, because they now know that the
People will reflect their statements back onto them.
[This is part of the book: Basis Of Singaporean Spirit - People Power, click here to go to the main page]
[i] In Singapore, all males must serve
at least 2 years of National Service. "Combat vocations" are roles that need to
go to the battle field in times of war while "Service vocations" are roles that
typically stay in the office and do not need to go to the battle field.
[ii] Examples are meant for illustration of concepts, not meant for
asserting whether having a degree is better or not.
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