NUMERICAL LITERACY….Mark Kleiman nominates the following as a “list of concepts journalism students should be exposed to”:
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Institutional culture
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Regression toward the mean
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Moral hazard
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Expected value (of an uncertain outcome)
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Present value (of a stream of gains and losses over time)
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Statistical control
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Correlation v. causation
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Benefit-cost analysis and willingness-to-pay
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Cost-effectiveness
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Separation of powers
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Mill’s “harm principle”
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Rent-seeking
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Opportunity cost
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Cognitive dissonance
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Milgram experiment
Obviously we all have our favorites, and your list would probably be different from Mark’s. But I will note one thing: by my count, nine out of his fifteen items are related to numerical literacy of one kind or another. That sounds about right to me.
