Let's explore the role of statistics versus the role of case studies in helping us understand and make sense of realities. To highlight the issues involved, we reference a historical quote from one of the most evil people in history, Joseph Stalin: "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic."

The Power of Case Studies

What does this mean? When you have one case, that's a case study. You can learn an individual's story, feel and sympathize with them. You can picture their face and feel what they feel. You can feel a connection to their situation. However, when you have many such cases, you lose that connection. It becomes a statistic. The mind can't really process a million or many. The individual stories just blend into each other, and we lose touch with those individual stories.

The Limitations of Case Studies

But when you just look at one case, it doesn't have statistical significance. It can be very deceiving because maybe that's the only case that ever happened in the world. In fact, a lot of news, when they try to shock you, show you something that's outside the norm. That's a unique case study because it's noteworthy. So, you have to be careful not to be deceived. It's very easy to fall into that, especially when we want to believe that or when it's comfortable to believe that.

The Importance of Statistics

The way to balance that is to look at statistics, but not the way most people do it. How do most people do it? Most people skim headlines on social media, which are not that credible, and think, "Oh yeah, it's a statistic." However, many organizations and governments keep actual real statistics that you can publicly access on a lot of different issues. There are also independent studies on many different issues. These are the more credible sources to look into.

The Limitations of Statistics

Statistics tell you the broader truth, but they disconnect you from the reality on the ground. You lose connection with the people and the individual stories. Additionally, statistics can be highly manipulated. For example, if I tell you a statistic that a player has a 100% success rate in shooting in games that his team wins, that sounds pretty good. It sounds like he's amazing. But because it's in games that his team wins, his team maybe only won one game, and maybe if he played 100 games, he'd be a pretty terrible player. So, statistics can also be very much manipulated.

Balancing Case Studies and Statistics

We have to make sure that statistics are generated by either correctly created scientific studies or accurate polls, so the source of them should also be questioned. When you try to form your sense of reality, you have to balance the understanding of realistic and representative case studies and accurately collected statistics. That's the best way to accept something as more or less a truth in the world.