this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
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Are they constantly contradicting the advice of the rest of the mathematicians?
Stats is technically math but it's the softest math you can imagine. A huge amount of it is data collection and interpretation. It works different parts of your brain, requires different skills than pure math
Statistics is a sociological discipline that is based mostly on mathematical models. Choosing your interpretation, and data collection methodology, typically means much more than the math you do on the data.
Mathematics is a search for absolute truth, as proven from axioms.
Meanwhile, this is said about statistics: There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
And even when used in good faith, statistics tends to move toward approximate truth. Statistics can tell you the exact chance that you'll pull a red marble out of a bag of other marbles, but until you actually pull the marble, it still can't tell you exactly what color marble you'll pull. Run the experiment again, and it may turn out differently next time. You never get absolute truth, only percentage approximations.
Very different than other types of math, yes, where 2+2 is always 4, and you can know it for absolute certain in every case for all of time.