I disagree. I think brains are great with statistics. It is easy to pay attention to the things that aren't happening because you can know they aren't on the news. Housing market=GREAT! Stock market=GREAT! Commercial real estate=GREAT! Rental market=GREAT! The problem with people's brains is they love to predict what will happen. If people would just realize that they cannot predict the future everybody would be OK. But, then we wouldn't have a market or Las Vegas. People are strange, but by saying that the brain isn't good with statistics is too broad of a statement. I do, however, agree with your negative comments on the news and the media. I am not the biggest Trump fan, but I am very happy that he is spreading the Fake News movement. What people need to keep in their mind, is that all news is fake if they are trying to predict what will happen. The only way to keep news real is to show video of the facts that hasn't been edited or tampered with. The local news seems to be the only real news. But, even the local news leaves out stories of all time new highs in the stock market. But, right when the market goes down 1% they have a conniption fit. It is unfair to the people! Trump also has called out the media on their negativity.
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Thanks for disagreeing :)
Human brains are capable of rational thought yes, and when in that mode it is possible to understand statistics.
Most of the time we are not thinking rationally though: here is a pretty good write up:
http://www.burns-stat.com/review-thinking-fast-slow-daniel-kahneman/
Marketers, news agencies, banks, creditcard corporations, car salesmen have understood this for decades already and have been using this weakness of human minds quite successfully to rip people off constantly.
Why do people take on credit card debt, get car loans which almost double the cost of the car, buy stocks that are too expensive? Yes on paper this all should be obvious if you do a few simple sums, but most successful corporations have found that if you can keep the emotional part of the brain flooded with stimuli, people never get around to engage the rational part of their brain. Why do you think car ads had nice looking girls next to them? That is no accident,
it works and has a measurable impact on bad decision making.
Thinking, fast and slow should be mandatory reading for anyone with a brain...