Blinded by Experiences?
When I first started reading Tim Harford’s book How to Make the World Add Up, I thought, ah, this read will be a breeze. I agree with Harford’s premise that statistics can give us valuable information. At first glance, his ten rules for thinking about statistics seemed straightforward and easy. Early in my career, I was invited to participate in a Community Coaches training program. Juan Sepulveda, a top consultant was flown in monthly to spend the day teaching us to be the best nonprofit execs for our own organizations and coaches to other organizations. All aspects of nonprofit workings from mission, vision and core value statements to governance, fundraising, power and service were included[1]. The course gave structure to what I was doing. One assignment that stood out was to spend at least one full week listening or reading to news from a different perspective. If someone typically listened to NPR then turn on a station that was historically known to be more conservative, and vice versa. While the exercise did not change my way of voting, it did make me more understanding of different political approaches. Whether in work or personal life, I think of myself as a rational and thoughtful person. I like to see different points of view and learn from other people.
Fast forward to 2020. COVID-19 turned into a global pandemic that brought families, cities, and countries to a halt. In my work world, it put us into high gear.
For the last twenty-four years I have been leading an organization that cares for people living with developmental differences. This means the people we serve have a developmental disability such as down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, or spina bifida, often mixed with psychiatric diagnoses and seizure disorders.
One of our primary services includes residential group homes. Over half of our residents had no family and others had aging parents or inaccessible family homes. This meant that we continued to have staff around the clock at each of our 6 homes. According to JAMA, Network Open, people living with developmental disabilities have a greater risk of poor outcomes if they contracted COVID-19[2].
Before remedies, masks, and vaccinations were easily available, nearly every decision we made felt like life and death. There were, also, behavioral issues to navigate when someone just did not have the capacity to understand why we could not go to the mall or visit friends no matter how hard our staff tried to redirect to an activity in the home.
There were sweet moments during the pandemic. Some of our individuals needed total care and round-the-clock nursing. During the pandemic we had to beg and barter with nurses to work shifts. The difficulty was that in one home, without a nurse, we could not give medications or even feed people without one. One time, a nursing instructor from a local university volunteered to work an overnight shift. We were not beyond accepting any help we could get.
By the time the world reopened, our staff had worked courageously and those who needed hospitalization survived. Our one casualty was closing our medical group home. The nursing crisis wasn’t going away quickly and sometimes the best way to love someone is to let them go into the hands of another, something I had been telling parents for many years. This time there was a real sting to these words.
During the pandemic, we watched statistics often. Our local health department regulated our comings and goings based on them. When political figures started dismissing the severity of the pandemic and the value of vaccines and a senior government official reprimanded middle school students for wearing masks, I got angry. Those tools were important for us.
In How To Make the World Add Up, Tim Harford talks about the importance of “good” statistics that help those using them to see something clearly.[3] To do that, he recommended that the reader of stats follow some basic rules.
Reading these rules gave me time to look back over my experiences with the pandemic and put perspective on my frustration with anti-vaccination media and illness dismissiveness. I see that my feelings of fear that wrong decisions could impact someone’s life and the experiences of a year of intensity influenced how I look at the pandemic and statistics around it. Employees lost family members. There were times when sick supervisors would still go to work because there would be no one else available. It was real.
Reflecting on our reading, I see a connection to The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking. The criteria for evaluating reasoning[4] do not seem fundamentally different than the rules Harford recommends for statistics. The steps may measure different things, but both have similar concepts. Look at the information carefully. Ask questions. Check your preconceived ideas and assumptions. Was anything omitted? I do not know if the specific questions are as critical as being curious, aware, and open to information that may be different than our own. So now I wonder how this will change me.
Hopefully, recognizing the possibility of misleading definitions that Darrell Huff espoused[5] or the way the tobacco industry flooded the market with doubt and skepticism[6], will help me examine statistics differently. I still like statistics and recognize their importance. Yet there are times when my own experiences may get in the way of being open to statistics that do not favor my preconceived opinions.
[1] Juan Sepulveda, Lead Instructor, Jacksonville Youth Development Community Coaches, 2005.
[2] Landes SD, Turk MA, Damiani MR, Proctor P, Baier S. Rick Factors Associated With COVID-19 Outcomes Among People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Receiving Residential Services. JAMA Network Open. 2021:4(6):e2112862.doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.12862.
[3] Tim Harford, How to Make the World Add Up (Great Britain: Bridge Street Press, 2021), 11.
[4] Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide To CRITICAL THINKING: Concepts and Tools (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2020), 30.
[5] Harford, 78.
[6] Harford, 14-15.
About the Author
Diane Tuttle
12 responses to “Blinded by Experiences?”
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Hi Diane,
It seems like the pandemic was decades ago, yet just last week. Your writing brought back a lot of memories – none that were good. Decision-making in a job like yours had to be tough. Considering your role in leading an organization serving individuals with developmental differences, did statistical analysis contribute to your understanding of their vulnerability to COVID-19 at all, or was it just the seat of the pants at the time, doing the best you could do?
Chris, that was a good question. The very first decisions were made based on experience from other illnesses. However, as statistics started coming in on hospitalizations and deaths, we became much more intentional about equipment we bought and keeping people apart when sick. So, yes, the stats were useful.
I love the news source exercise (listing to the opposite perspective). That makes me think of the two visualizations on the Iraq war (bloody war vs. declining deaths). They both tell the same story but from a politically diverse perspective.
I love data and feel like it’s so critical for informed decision making.
Do you have reliable data sources that you lean on in your profession?
Hi Christy, I like the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. They publish a monthly journal of studies. Sometimes they relate to people we serve other times it is interesting research on rare disorders that have been discovered.
On listening to opposing media, I didn’t mind it when people were simply talking about their views. When people might rant and rave in argumentative ways, I listened for a bit then turned it off. Generally, I didn’t mind it though.
Hi Diane,
Thank you for your post. I could not agree more with you on your observations. Particularly, your observation about the importance of “good” statistics, as emphasized by Harford, I get it, especially in the context of navigating the complexities of the pandemic. The parallels you draw between Harford’s rules for interpreting statistics and the criteria for evaluating reasoning in critical thinking offer valuable insights into the importance of approaching statistical information with a critical mindset.
Tim Harford, How to Make the World Add Up (Great Britain: Bridge Street Press, 2021),
Thanks Shela.
Diane, what great work you do/did, especially during such a challenging time! Thank you for that.
The pandemic keeps coming up in these posts that we’ve written this week. I, too, was immensely frustrated tht statistics were brushed off as “fake news” by those who didn’t want to hear the BAD news.
And yes, we do all end up in one “echo chamber” – unless we’re intentional – because that’s the way the search algorithms work. How did it affect you when you intentionally followed media from the opposite side of the aisle for a while?
Hi Debbie, thanks for your comments. You and Christy are on the same wave. In my reply to her I said that as long as the people were calmly talking about whatever views they had, I was okay listening. However, if they started raising their voices and might slip into demonizing the opposing side, I turned it off completely. I listen to a lot LESS radio media from either side now. Thanks for asking.
Diane, thank you for sharing your Hero’s Journey through the pandemic. I truly sense the love and care you showed for your team and residents. On the more personal side…what truths did the Lord remind you of during this very difficult season? What information brought you hope?
My mind also went to the The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking when reading Harford. I now have an easily accessible screenshot of the list of “Essential Intellectual Standards for all Human Thought.”
Thanks for the questions Elysse, I knew during the pandemic that no matter how much WE did, it might not be enough so I really needed to trust that God was in control of our people, regardless of the outcomes that we wanted. Remembering I am not God allowed me to sleep. What a fine line between doing all we can but then also not feeling we can or must fix everything. Two things brought hope. The first was the lived experience that our people could survive what we were originally told could be horrible. The second was the introduction of medications that could lessen symptoms and reduce serious illness. It meant fewer people were hospitalized. I don’t think looking at statistics specifically shared with the general public were what made the difference for me but the research that had been happening in labs that found some options.
Diane, thank you for sharing your experience. I can only imagine the challenge of having to make the high-level decisions you had to during that time.
You made me think about all the complexities present in a situation like yours and how none of us were really prepared for what happened. Despite the challenge, it sounds like people really came together and things were managed.
That said, I think this question about how one’s feelings, especially that of fear, influence thoughts, beliefs, and behavior was fascinating during the height of COVID-19. We saw the worst of this from so many angles. However, I’m happy this book has provided an opportunity for reflection and I’m curious how this can be leveraged for your NPO.
In particular, when you think about the larger work of preparing an organization for a change in leadership, where do you think some of Harfords “keys” will be helpful?
Akwese, thanks for your thoughts and question. As I am working on my research paper, some of those same questions have come up. The one taking center stage for me is being aware that I came into my project with a preconceived idea of the correct way to transition executive leadership. My readings are giving me a completely different approach that I am excited to keep learning more about. So in Harford’s terms it would be to ask, not necessarily who is missing, but perhaps what is missing. Then, also keeping an open mind and being curious will be important. These reminders will not be just for the NPO though. I think the questions are transferrable to other situations as well.