I’ve got a pet peeve about quantifying the unquantifiable. Maybe because I’m a word guy (even though I did do better on my math SAT, but don’t most people?), but I just don’t like it when people try to apply number values to concepts that, if you truly understand the way the world works, cannot be truthfully and accurately described that way.
Take probabilities. Please. I hate it when people say, for instance, “there’s a 20 percent chance of rain tomorrow.” What does that mean? Nothing, really, except that there is a chance of rain, but not a particularly great one. It assigns a numerical value to something unknowable, or at least, something that cannot be known that precisely. I don’t want to get into a discussion of the Butterfly Effect or any of that, but there are just way, way, too many variables to nail it down.
And if that forecast is for Columbia, what does that mean? That there is a 20 percent chance of rain at the airport, which isn’t actually in Columbia? If it rains somewhere in the metropolitan area, but not within the city limits, does that count as raining or not? And does it matter? Does anyone hold you accountable for that 20 percent number, and how do they do so?
Here’s the thing: When speaking about the future, there is either a 100 percent chance of rain or there isn’t, because either it’s going to rain or it isn’t (that is, once you’ve nailed down what you mean by “rain” — does an almost foglike mist count? what are the geographic boundaries? if it rains everywhere but at my house, does that negate the prediction?). You can check later. If it rains, or if it doesn’t, “20 percent” was meaningless.
So it is that I nod with approval when I read a forecast like the one on my Blackberry this morning:
Today…Occasional rain. Highs in the lower 40s. Northeast winds around 10
mph…increasing to 15 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100 percent.
I look around me, I feel the rain upon my face, and I say, “You got that right.” I like a prediction that doesn’t fool around, but takes a stand…
I have such severe math dyslexia, I made almost double that score on the verbal.
Do most people really do better on the math?
I used to joke that a 20% chance of rain meant it would rain 20% of the day. In fact, it says, as I’m sure you know, that on for every five days in which the forecast weather conditions occur, it rained on one of them.
and I did 70 points better on my verbal than my math….but then I was a girl…
martin–I believe most people do in fact do better on the math. Funny you should mention math dyslexia (well, not ha ha funny). My mom and I both have problems with numbers (I can spot a typo on a printed page at 20 paces, but numbers?) I got a lot better at math (like math team better) once we moved to letters and the like–my arithmetic skills required a lot of double checking.
My checkbook has improved greatly since we put it on Quicken, automated out bills and use plastic whenever possible, but I can remember an nice friend just giving up on finding the error(s) and starting over from scratch with my account back in the day.
I haven’t heard of others with this problem, though. (My husband is a computer science/mathemetician, so I probably don’t run in those circles.) Lawyers like me usually just do the “I was an English major; you do the math” thing….but in that case, that extends to all math…I can do math quite well until I get to 2x = 4 and I’ll muck up the arithmetic. Thank goodness most of Europe moved to Euros which are approximately dollars! I was constantly confused with francs.
Why don’t they tell us we have an 80% chance of sunshine? That’s so much cheerier.
My scores had about 10 points difference. I’m well-rounded.