Data & Analytical Thinking
Column VII. Every lesson leaves you with a working thing.
LevelSort
DT-05L3★"A Study Showed That…": How to Actually Read a Paper→ One real paper evaluated against a six-question checklist, with a verdict you can defendDT-09L1★A Four-Step Protocol for Verifying a Source→ Your own four-step verification checklist, applied to three claims you actually ran into this weekDT-03L1Correlation Is Not Causation, With Real Examples→ Four real causal claims taken apart — for each, the four possible explanations tested and the most likely one namedDT-10L2★Decision Frameworks: Expected Value, Reversibility, Opportunity Cost→ One real decision run through the frameworks: expected value estimated, reversibility and opportunity cost assessed, a defensible choice madeDT-11L3★Fermi Estimation: Producing a Number When You Have No Data→ Three Fermi estimates worked start to finish, each with its assumptions listed and a sanity-check against realityDT-02L1★How Charts Lie: Eight Manipulation Techniques→ A detection list of the eight techniques, applied to three real charts found in the wildDT-12L1★How the Algorithm Knows You→ A before/after record of your own feed — the 20-click experiment run on a real accountDT-08L2Logical Fallacies: Where an Argument Actually Breaks→ Ten fallacies you can name on sight, applied to three real arguments — with one of them steelmanned instead of dismissedDT-06L3p-values, Statistical Significance and Effect Size→ A concept map plus one real study read for what its p-value does and doesn't claim, alongside its effect sizeDT-01L1★Reading Data: Mean, Median, Spread — and the Lie of the Average→ Three real datasets summarised correctly — mean, median and spread — with the misleading summary identified in eachDT-04L2Sampling, Survey Design and Why Most Surveys Are Junk→ A teardown of three real surveys or polls with each one's fatal flaw named, plus one leading question rewritten neutrallyDT-07L1Ten Cognitive Biases and Where You'll Meet Them Today→ A diagnostic card of the ten biases, each matched to one real moment from your own last week