More needs to be done to improve MPs’ understanding of data, the Royal Statistical Society saidIf politics is a game of chance, it is no wonder that so many political careers end in failure. A survey has found that only half the MPs questioned got simple statistics problems correct. The Royal Statistical Society criticised MPs’ numerical skills after finding that they performed poorly on basic tests of probability, and suggested they needed mathematics lessons. SponsoredParliamentarians were poor at a question about false positive rates on coronavirus tests, despite two years of a pandemic in which they have been grappling with policies where such reasoning is essential. There are signs of progress, however: the number correctly answering one of the basic questions has improved by 30 per cent over the past decade.

Source: The Times February 11, 2022 12:07 UTC