How Statistics Become Propaganda

Today’s guest is Aaron Brown, author of the new book Wrong Number: How to Extract Truth From a Blizzard of Quantitative Disinformation. A former chief risk manager at AQR Capital Management who teaches statistics at New York University and University of California, San Diego, Brown also contributes popular video essays to Reason. In Wrong Number, Brown investigates questions such as: Did California’s minimum wage hike create more jobs? Does using marijuana massively increase the odds of having a heart attack or stroke? Is the United States experiencing a spike in the number of high temperature days?

In an interview recorded at a live event in New York City, he explains how academics and the media routinely distort research to grab attention and push alarm buttons. He also talks with Nick Gillespie about his recent online argument with popular science communicator Hank Green about the ways in which climate change data are presented.

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0:00—Why did Brown write Wrong Number?

3:42—Examining the claim the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) saved 90 million lives

7:45—Climate alarmism and problematic data

16:16—Marijuana and cardiac risk

19:04—Data collection and deceptive framing

22:55—The Lancet and scientific gatekeepers

25:31—Why should scientists preregister their hypotheses?

32:29—Chinatown buses

41:40—Brown’s origin story

45:35—Gambling and prediction markets