Back in 2003, the UK government carried out a survey. And it was a survey that measured levels of numeracy in the population. And they were shocked to find out that for every 100 working age adults in the country, 47 of them lacked Level 1 numeracy skills. Now, Level 1 numeracy skills -- that's low-end GCSE score. It's the ability to deal with fractions, percentages and decimals. So this figure prompted a lot of hand-wringing in Whitehall. Policies were changed, investments were made, and then they ran the survey again in 2011. So can you guess what happened to this number? It went up to 49.
Godine 2003 vlada Ujedinjenog Kraljevstva je sprovela istraživanje. Bilo je to istraživanje koje je merilo nivo numeričke pismenosti u populaciji. Šokiralo ih je otkriće da je, od svakih 100 radno sposobnih odraslih osoba u zemlji, njih 47 bilo ispod prvog nivoa numeričke pismenosti. Numerička pismenost prvog nivoa - to su niži rezultati potrebni za sertifikat o srednjoškolskom obrazovanju. To je sposobnost baratanja razlomcima, procentima i decimalama. Ova cifra je stoga izazvala mnogo uznemirenosti u vladi. Politika je izmenjena, sprovedena su ulaganja, a zatim su 2011. godine ponovo sproveli istraživanje. Da li onda možete da pogodite šta se dogodilo sa ovim brojem? Popeo se na 49.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
And in fact, when I reported this figure in the FT, one of our readers joked and said, "This figure is only shocking to 51 percent of the population."
Zapravo, kada sam izveštavao o ovoj cifri u Fajnenšel tajmsu, jedan naš čitalac se našalio i rekao: „Ova cifra je šokantna samo za 51 odsto populacije.“
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
But I preferred, actually, the reaction of a schoolchild when I presented at a school this information, who raised their hand and said, "How do we know that the person who made that number isn't one of the 49 percent either?"
Ipak mi se više svidela reakcija jednog školarca kada sam predstavljao ovu informaciju u jednoj školi, koji je podigao ruku i rekao: „Kako znamo da i osoba koja je smislila taj broj nije jedna u tih 49 posto?“
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
So clearly, there's a numeracy issue, because these are important skills for life, and a lot of the changes that we want to introduce in this century involve us becoming more comfortable with numbers.
Dakle, očigledno je da postoji problem sa numeričkom pismenošću, jer su ovo važne životne veštine i mnoge promena koje želimo da uvedemo u ovom veku podrazumevaju da postanemo sigurniji sa brojevima.
Now, it's not just an English problem. OECD this year released some figures looking at numeracy in young people, and leading the way, the USA -- nearly 40 percent of young people in the US have low numeracy. Now, England is there too, but there are seven OECD countries with figures above 20 percent. That is a problem, because it doesn't have to be that way. If you look at the far end of this graph, you can see the Netherlands and Korea are in single figures. So there's definitely a numeracy problem that we want to address.
To nije samo engleski problem. Organizacija za ekonomsku saradnju i razvoj je objavila izvesne brojke posmatrajući numeričku pismenost mladih, i predvodi SAD - približno 40 posto mladih u SAD-u ima nizak nivo numeričke pismenosti. Engleska je takođe tu negde, ali postoji sedam zemalja OECD-a sa brojkama iznad 20 odsto. To je problem, jer ne mora da bude tako. Ukoliko pogledate deo skroz na kraju ovog grafikona, možete videti da Holandija i Koreja imaju jednocifrene brojeve. Dakle, definitivno postoji problem numeričke pismenosti kojim želimo da se pozabavimo.
Now, as useful as studies like these are, I think we risk herding people inadvertently into one of two categories; that there are two kinds of people: those people that are comfortable with numbers, that can do numbers, and the people who can't. And what I'm trying to talk about here today is to say that I believe that is a false dichotomy. It's not an immutable pairing. I think you don't have to have tremendously high levels of numeracy to be inspired by numbers, and that should be the starting point to the journey ahead.
Koliko god da su korisne ovakve studije, mislim da rizikujemo da nehotice smestimo ljude u jednu od dve kategorije, da postoje dve vrste ljudi: oni kojima brojevi odgovaraju, koji umeju sa brojevima, i ljudi koji ne umeju. Ono o čemu pokušavam da govorim ovde danas je da verujem da je to lažna dihotomija. To nije nepromenljivo grupisanje. Smatram da ne morate imati užasno visok nivo numeričke pismenosti da bi vas inspirisali brojevi, i da to treba da bude polazna tačka za putovanje pred nama.
And one of the ways in which we can begin that journey, for me, is looking at statistics. Now, I am the first to acknowledge that statistics has got somewhat of an image problem.
Jedan od načina na koje možemo započeti to putovanje, za mene, je sagledavanje statistike. Prvi sam koji će priznati da statistika donekle ima problem sa imidžom.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
It's the part of mathematics that even mathematicians don't particularly like, because whereas the rest of maths is all about precision and certainty, statistics is almost the reverse of that. But actually, I was a late convert to the world of statistics myself. If you'd asked my undergraduate professors what two subjects would I be least likely to excel in after university, they'd have told you statistics and computer programming, and yet here I am, about to show you some statistical graphics that I programmed.
To je deo matematike koji čak ni matematičari ne vole naročito, jer, dok se ostatak matematike potpuno svodi na preciznost i sigurnost, statistika je gotovo suprotna tome. Zapravo, i sȃm sam kasno prešao u svet statistike. Da ste pitali moje profesore sa osnovnih studija za koja dva predmeta je najmanje verovatno da se istaknem u njima nakon univerziteta, rekli bi vam da su to statistika i kompjutersko programiranje, a ipak, eto me, i uskoro ću vam pokazati neke statističke grafike koje sam programirao.
So what inspired that change in me? What made me think that statistics was actually an interesting thing? It's really because statistics are about us. If you look at the etymology of the word statistics, it's the science of dealing with data about the state or the community that we live in. So statistics are about us as a group, not us as individuals. And I think as social animals, we share this fascination about how we as individuals relate to our groups, to our peers. And statistics in this way are at their most powerful when they surprise us.
Šta je inspirisalo tu promenu u meni? Šta me je navelo da pomislim da je statistika zapravo nešto zanimljivo? Radi se o tome da se statistika zapravo odnosi na nas. Ako pogledate etimologiju reči statistika, to je nauka bavljenja podacima o državi ili zajednici u kojoj živimo. Dakle, statistika se odnosi na nas kao grupu, a ne kao na pojedince. Mislim da, kao društvene životinje, delimo fascinaciju prema načinu na koji se kao pojedinci odnosimo prema našim grupama, prema nama jednakima. Statistika je na ovaj način najmoćnija kada nas iznenadi.
And there's been some really wonderful surveys carried out recently by Ipsos MORI in the last few years. They did a survey of over 1,000 adults in the UK, and said, for every 100 people in England and Wales, how many of them are Muslim? Now the average answer from this survey, which was supposed to be representative of the total population, was 24. That's what people thought. British people think 24 out of every 100 people in the country are Muslim. Now, official figures reveal that figure to be about five. So there's this big variation between what we think, our perception, and the reality as given by statistics. And I think that's interesting. What could possibly be causing that misperception?
Neka zaista divna istraživanja je nedavno sprovela organizacija Ipsos MORI poslednjih nekoliko godina. Sproveli su ispitivanje na preko 1 000 odraslih u Britaniji i upitali: „Na svakih 100 osoba u Engleskoj i Velsu, koliko njih su muslimani?“ Prosečan odgovor iz ovog istraživanja, koji je trebalo da zastupa celu populaciju, bio je 24. To je ono što su ljudi mislili. Britanci misle da su 24 osobe od svakih 100 u zemlji muslimani. Zvanične brojke otkrivaju da je ta cifra oko pet. Dakle, postoji veliko odstupanje između onoga što mislimo, naše percepcije, i stvarnosti koju iznosi statistika. Smatram da je to zanimljivo. Šta bi moglo biti to što stvara takvu pogrešnu percepciju?
And I was so thrilled with this study, I started to take questions out in presentations. I was referring to it. Now, I did a presentation at St. Paul's School for Girls in Hammersmith, and I had an audience rather like this, except it was comprised entirely of sixth-form girls. And I said, "Girls, how many teenage girls do you think the British public think get pregnant every year?" And the girls were apoplectic when I said the British public think that 15 out of every 100 teenage girls get pregnant in the year. And they had every right to be angry, because in fact, I'd have to have closer to 200 dots before I could color one in, in terms of what the official figures tell us.
Bio sam toliko oduševljen ovom studijom da sam počeo da iznosim pitanja u prezentacijama, pozivao sam se na nju. Održao sam prezentaciju u školi za devojčice „Sv. Pavle“ u Hamersmitu i imao sam publiku prilično sličnu ovoj, osim što se sasvim sastojala od devojčica viših razreda. Pitao sam: „Devojke, šta mislite, koliko tinejdžerki britanska javnost smatra da zatrudni svake godine?“ Šokirale su se kada sam rekao da britanska javnost misli da 15 od svakih 100 tinejdžerki zatrudni svake godine. Imale su svako pravo da budu ljute, jer sam zapravo morao da se približim za 200 tački da bih obojio jednu, shodno onome što nam govore zvanični brojevi.
And rather like numeracy, this is not just an English problem. Ipsos MORI expanded the survey in recent years to go across the world. And so, they asked Saudi Arabians, for every 100 adults in your country, how many of them are overweight or obese? And the average answer from the Saudis was just over a quarter. That's what they thought. Just over a quarter of adults are overweight or obese. The official figures show, actually, it's nearer to three-quarters.
Baš kao i sa numeričkom pismenošću, ovo nije samo engleski problem. Ipsos MORI je proširio istraživanje širom sveta poslednjih godina. Tako, kada su upitali Saudijske Arape: „Na svakih 100 odraslih osoba u vašoj zemlji, koliko njih je prekomerne težine ili gojazno?“ Prosečan odgovor Saudijskih Arapa bio je nešto više od četvrtine. To su mislili. Tek nešto više od četvrtine odraslih je prekomerne težine ili gojazno. Zvanične cifre zapravo pokazuju da je taj broj bliži tri četvrtine.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
So again, a big variation.
Dakle, još jednom, veliko odstupanje.
And I love this one: they asked in Japan, they asked the Japanese, for every 100 Japanese people, how many of them live in rural areas? The average was about a 50-50 split, just over halfway. They thought 56 out of every 100 Japanese people lived in rural areas. The official figure is seven.
Obožavam ovu - pitali su u Japanu, postavili su pitanje Japancima: „Na svakih 100 japanskih stanovnika, koliko njih živi u ruralnim područjima?“ Prosek je bio podela na 50-50, nešto više od polovine. Mislili su da 56 od svakih 100 Japanaca živi u ruralnim područjima. Zvanična cifra je sedam.
So extraordinary variations, and surprising to some, but not surprising to people who have read the work of Daniel Kahneman, for example, the Nobel-winning economist. He and his colleague, Amos Tversky, spent years researching this disjoint between what people perceive and the reality, the fact that people are actually pretty poor intuitive statisticians. And there are many reasons for this. Individual experiences, certainly, can influence our perceptions, but so, too, can things like the media reporting things by exception, rather than what's normal. Kahneman had a nice way of referring to that. He said, "We can be blind to the obvious" -- so we've got the numbers wrong -- "but we can be blind to our blindness about it." And that has enormous repercussions for decision making.
Dakle, izuzetna odstupanja i iznenađujuća za neke, ali ne iznenađuju ljude koji su pročitali delo Danijela Kanemana, na primer, ekonomiste i dobitnika Nobelove nagrade. On i njegov kolega Amos Tverski proveli su godine istražujući razdor između onog što ljudi opažaju i realnosti, činjenicu da su ljudi zapravo prilično loši intuitivni statističari. Postoji mnogo razloga za to. Individualna iskustva, naravno, mogu uticati na našu percepciju, ali i mediji koji izveštavaju o stvarima koje su izuzeci, češće nego o onome što je normalno. Kaneman je imao fin način da govori o tome. Rekao je: „Možemo biti slepi za očigledno“ - dakle, grešimo u brojevima - „ali možemo biti slepi za naše slepilo u vezi sa time.“ A to ima ogromne posledice za donošenje odluka.
So at the statistics office while this was all going on, I thought this was really interesting. I said, this is clearly a global problem, but maybe geography is the issue here. These were questions that were all about, how well do you know your country? So in this case, it's how well do you know 64 million people? Not very well, it turns out. I can't do that. So I had an idea, which was to think about this same sort of approach but to think about it in a very local sense. Is this a local? If we reframe the questions and say, how well do you know your local area, would your answers be any more accurate?
U statističkoj kancelariji, dok se sve ovo dešavalo, mislio sam da je to zaista zanimljivo. Rekoh, ovo je očigledno globalni problem, ali možda geografija ovde predstavlja problem. Sva ta pitanja su se odnosila na to koliko dobro poznajete svoju zemlju. U ovom slučaju, to je koliko dobro poznajete 64 miliona ljudi. Ne baš dobro, ispostavilo se. Ne umem ja to. Stoga sam dobio ideju, a to je bilo da razmišljam o istoj ovakvoj vrsti pristupa, ali da razmišljam o njemu u vrlo lokalnom smislu. Da li je ovo lokalno? Ako preformulišemo pitanje i kažemo koliko dobro poznajete svoje lokalno područje, da li će odgovori biti išta tačniji?
So I devised a quiz: How well do you know your area? It's a simple Web app. You put in a post code and then it will ask you questions based on census data for your local area. And I was very conscious in designing this. I wanted to make it open to the widest possible range of people, not just the 49 percent who can get the numbers. I wanted everyone to engage with it. So for the design of the quiz, I was inspired by the isotypes of Otto Neurath from the 1920s and '30s. Now, these are methods for representing numbers using repeating icons. And the numbers are there, but they sit in the background. So it's a great way of representing quantity without resorting to using terms like "percentage," "fractions" and "ratios."
Tako sam osmislio kviz koliko dobro poznajete svoj kraj. To je jednostavna veb-aplikacija. Unesete poštanski broj i zatim vam postavlja pitanja na osnovu popisnih podataka za vašu lokalnu teritoriju. Veoma sam promišljeno ovo dizajnirao. Želeo sam da je učinim otvorenom za najširi mogući opseg ljudi, ne samo za 49 posto koji mogu da pogode projeve. Želeo sam da se svi pozabave njome. Pri dizajnu kviza, bio sam inspirisan izotipovima Ota Nojrata iz '20-ih i '30-ih godina. To su metode predstavljanja brojeva korišćenjem ponavljanja ikona. Brojevi su tu, ali sede u pozadini. Zato je to sjajan način predstavljanja količine bez pribegavanja korišćenju termina kao što su „procenat“, „razlomci“ i „razmera“.
So here's the quiz. The layout of the quiz is, you have your repeating icons on the left-hand side there, and a map showing you the area we're asking you questions about on the right-hand side. There are seven questions. Each question, there's a possible answer between zero and a hundred, and at the end of the quiz, you get an overall score between zero and a hundred. And so because this is TEDxExeter, I thought we would have a quick look at the quiz for the first few questions of Exeter. And so the first question is: For every 100 people, how many are aged under 16? Now, I don't know Exeter very well at all, so I had a guess at this, but it gives you an idea of how this quiz works. You drag the slider to highlight your icons, and then just click "Submit" to answer, and we animate away the difference between your answer and reality. And it turns out, I was a pretty terrible guess: five.
Evo kviza. Postavka kviza je takva da imate ikonice koje se ponavljaju tu na levoj strani i mapu koja vam pokazuje oblast o kojoj vam postavljamo pitanja na desnoj strani. Postoji sedam pitanja. Za svako pitanje je moguć odgovor između nule i stotine, a na kraju kviza dobijate ukupan rezultat između nule i stotine. A pošto je ovo TEDxExeter, mislio sam da bacimo pogled na kviz za prvih nekoliko pitanja o Egzeteru. Tako je prvo pitanje: „Na svakih 100 ljudi, koliko njih je uzrasta ispod 16 godina?“ Ja uopšte ne poznajem dobro Egzeter, pa sam morao da pogađam, ali daje vam predstavu o tome kako ovaj kviz funkcioniše. Prevučete klizač da biste označili svoje ikonice, zatim samo kliknete „pošalji“ da biste odgovorili, i napravimo animaciju razlike između vašeg odgovora i stvarnosti. Ispostavilo se da sam dao prilično lošu pretpostavku: pet.
How about the next question? This is asking about what the average age is, so the age at which half the population are younger and half the population are older. And I thought 35 -- that sounds middle-aged to me.
A sledeće pitanje? Ono pita koji je prosečni uzrast, dakle, uzrast od koga je polovina populacije mlađa, a polovina populacije je starija. Pomislio sam da je 35 - to mi zvuči sredovečno.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Actually, in Exeter, it's incredibly young, and I had underestimated the impact of the university in this area. The questions get harder as you go through. So this one's now asking about homeownership: For every 100 households, how many are owned with a mortgage or loan? And I hedged my bets here, because I didn't want to be more than 50 out on the answer.
Zapravo, u Egzeteru, to su neverovatno mlade godine, a ja sam potcenio uticaj univerziteta u ovoj oblasti. Pitanja postaju sve teža dok prolazite kroz njih. Ovo pita o vlasništvu nad kućama. Od svakih 100 domaćinstava, koliko njih je u posedu uz hipoteku ili kredit? Ovde sam se ograničio ulog, zato što nisam hteo da omašim odgovor za više od 50.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
And actually, these get harder, these questions, because when you're in an area, when you're in a community, things like age -- there are clues to whether a population is old or young. Just by looking around the area, you can see it. Something like homeownership is much more difficult to see, so we revert to our own heuristics, our own biases about how many people we think own their own homes.
Zapravo, pitanja postaju teža jer kada ste u nekom okruženju, kada ste u nekoj zajednici, stvari poput godina - postoje naznake da li je stanovništvo mlado ili staro. Možete to videti samo razgledajući oblast. Nešto poput vlasništva nad kućama je mnogo teže videti, pa se okrećemo svojim heuristicima, sopstvenim pristrasnostima o tome koliko ljudi mislimo da poseduje svoje domove.
Now the truth is, when we published this quiz, the census data that it's based on was already a few years old. We've had online applications that allow you to put in a post code and get statistics back for years. So in some senses, this was all a little bit old and not necessarily new. But I was interested to see what reaction we might get by gamifying the data in the way that we have, by using animation and playing on the fact that people have their own preconceptions.
Istina, kada smo objavili ova kviz, popisni podaci na kojima je zasnovan bili su već stari nekoliko godina. Imali smo onlajn aplikaciju koja omogućava da unesete poštanski broj i dobijete statistiku godinama unazad. Prema tome, na neki način, ovo je bilo pomalo zastarelo i ne nužno novo. Ali me je interesovalo da vidim kakvu reakciju bismo mogli dobiti pretvaranjem podataka u igru na način na koji smo to postigli, korišćenjem animacije i poigravanjem činjenicom da ljudi imaju sopstvena predubeđenja.
It turns out, the reaction was, um ... was more than I could have hoped for. It was a long-held ambition of mine to bring down a statistics website due to public demand.
Ispostavilo se da je reakcija bila veća nego što sam se nadao. Dugo je bila moja ambicija da srušim statistički veb-sajt zbog potražnje javnosti.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
This URL contains the words "statistics," "gov" and "UK," which are three of people's least favorite words in a URL. And the amazing thing about this was that the website came down at quarter to 10 at night, because people were actually engaging with this data of their own free will, using their own personal time. I was very interested to see that we got something like a quarter of a million people playing the quiz within the space of 48 hours of launching it. And it sparked an enormous discussion online, on social media, which was largely dominated by people having fun with their misconceptions, which is something that I couldn't have hoped for any better, in some respects. I also liked the fact that people started sending it to politicians. How well do you know the area you claim to represent?
Ova veb-adresa sadrži reči „statistika“, „gov“ i „uk“, što su tri najmanje omiljene reči u jednoj veb-adresi. Iznenađujuće je da je veb-sajt pao u 15 do 10 noću, jer su se ljudi zapravo bavili ovim podacima dobrovoljno, koristeći svoje lično vreme. Bilo je veoma zanimljivo videti da imamo oko četvrtine miliona ljudi koji igraju kviz u okviru od 48 sati od njegovog pokretanja. To je izazvalo ogromne diskusije na internetu, na društvenim medijima, kojima su u velikoj meri dominirali ljudi koji su se zabavljali sa svojim zabludama, što je nešto najbolje čemu sam se mogao nadati, u neku ruku. Takođe mi se dopala činjenica da su ljudi počeli da ga šalju političarima. Koliko dobro poznajete oblast koju tvrdite da zastupate?
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
And then just to finish, going back to the two kinds of people, I thought it would be really interesting to see how people who are good with numbers would do on this quiz. The national statistician of England and Wales, John Pullinger, you would expect he would be pretty good. He got 44 for his own area.
Potom, samo za kraj, ako se vratim na one dve vrste ljudi, pomislio sam da bi bilo zanimljivo videti kako bi ljudi kojima dobro idu brojevi prošli na ovom kvizu. Za nacionalnog statističara Engleske i Velsa, Džona Pulindžera, očekivali biste da će dobro proći. Dobio je 44 za sopstveni kraj.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Jeremy Paxman -- admittedly, after a glass of wine -- 36. Even worse. It just shows you that the numbers can inspire us all. They can surprise us all.
Džeremi Paksmen - doduše, posle čaše vina - 36. Još gore. To vam samo pokazuje da brojevi mogu inspirisati sve nas. Sve nas mogu iznenaditi.
So very often, we talk about statistics as being the science of uncertainty. My parting thought for today is: actually, statistics is the science of us. And that's why we should be fascinated by numbers.
Tako veoma često govorimo o statistici kao o nauci o nesigurnosti. Misao sa kojom ću se danas rastati od vas je da je statistika zapravo nauka o nama. Zato bi trebalo da budemo fascinirani brojevima.
Thank you very much.
Mnogo vam hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)