You Are Not So Smart 022 - Survivorship Bias - Megan Price
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Apr 24, 2014 Megan Price, a statistician and director of research at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, dives into the pervasive issue of survivorship bias. She explains how often only successes are visible while failures are obscured, shaping our understanding and decisions. The conversation touches on the groundbreaking contributions of mathematicians during WWII that transformed military strategies by analyzing failures. Price also discusses her work in advocating for human rights through data, tackling the challenges of documenting violence and the importance of representation in data-driven narratives.
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Wald’s Bomber Breakthrough
- Abraham Wald worked with the Applied Mathematics Panel during WWII and prevented a fatal mistake about armoring bombers.
- He realized returned planes showed where they could take damage, not where they were most vulnerable.
Survivorship Bias Distorts Learning
- Survivorship bias makes us focus on successes while failures vanish and skew perception.
- This bias leads us to copy winners and ignore the silent cemetery of failures that would teach avoidance.
Seek What’s Missing
- When seeking guidance, actively search for what is missing and what not to do rather than idolizing winners.
- Look for failures' lessons because survivors rarely sell advice on avoiding catastrophe.
