The Median Isn't the Message by Stephen J Gould

[PaonSol]

Such an incredibly inspiring, intelligent man. Here's to you, Stephen Jay Gould.

[325982668]

i am surrounded by people who believe in "spirit" and that "we're all energy" in some kind of british new age sense of the human condition. they tell me that they way to beat cancer is to not think about it because acknowledging it gives it "energy." I tell them that ignoring the nature of their body is dangerous, and that ignoring a problem does not make it go away, and they all say that you "manifest" your problems by thinking about them.

why am i the only rationalist in my family?

[foxlake02]

Who was the one asshole who had a problem with this video?

[sk8teh14]

Now I want to do my statistics homework :D

[BlackMetalWarewolf]

fuck cancer. If I'm anything im extremely stubborn. Its nice to see someone else with the attitude of "Fuck it, Im going to die of something else".

[mrdaym]

I hate to be the one asking the alreafy answered question, but since it isn't stated, in which field are you holding a degree, if any?

[pyr666]

why is it all the cool scientists have to die?

[jebus6kryst]

Best wishes.

[Origen305]

A moving piece, brought to life by your obvious respect and deep appreciation of the man

One minor point, plese give Plato his due though he introduced the immutable forms he also, via the dialectic introduced Zeno and the eleatics, which go to the very heart of what boundries exist, if any, Plato critiqued Parmenides and his constant flux but It remains evidentially underdetermined as to whether Plato held/popogated these views, and thus be posited as the historical demiurge in your fashion.

[wasdom01]

Touching video C0nc0rdance. I've never had to battle the Big C, but I spend a good portion of every day researching issues that concern my own chronic autoimmune conditions. Refusing to accept the meaningless platitudes of the quasi faith tradition into which I was born has no doubt prolonged my life. It's inspirational to see what's possible when a genuinely brave person like yourself applies both reason AND hope to their situation. SJG would be proud to be in the same video with you mate :).

[wasdom01]

@wasdom01 Whoops, I've just been alerted that I've written "a genuinely brave person like 'yourself'" That should have read "like 'Stephen' ", obviously. Not that you're not brave too :).

[samOFblorx]

Fuckin' A. My mother, a nurse, always says "it seems like no sooner they find out they have cancer, they die." I think I would be in the right tail because I'm damned argumentative. I'd be like "we'll see about that," lol.

[AbdultheImpailler]

What a wonderful essay, SJG for the win!

[JRChadwick]

1 dislike. Who's the jerk?

[dunsedog]

@JRChadwick Seriously, who would dislike this? I mean as much as I get angry at people trying to make jokes at the numbers of dislikes, in this case I am truly irritated at whoever this person is.

[pyr666]

@JRChadwick

my guess is that it was a miss-click.

[1PintLasher]

From 6:40 to 7:20 is just wow

[airandfingers]

Great essay. I especially enjoyed the insights about variation being the reality and means and medians being the abstractions. As Alan Watts would say, we live in a wiggly world, constantly trying to break things up into discrete bits.

[puncheex]

Isaac Asimov related that when he had his first heart attack, his cardiologist was in doubt about what to do. He was a famous doctor and had many high calbre patients, and knew that many of them would not like him to discuss their illnesses with any media. He went to Asimov's wife to ask her advice; she asked him if he thought he could get it out before Isaac himself did. "You do know that he's already finished the first draft of his monthly essay about the attack, don't you?", she said.

[michalchik]

I wonder if the second cancer was caused by the chemo therapy he went through.

[HolyFictionOrg]

Why in the world would you have the last word of this slideshow be "soul"? "god", "soul", "heart". why not just say what you mean?

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. " Philip K. Dick

[stevehayes13]

It seems strange that anyone would mistake an abstraction for reality.

[amoxtlacatl]

This video should be compulsory viewing in the training of any professional who will deal with statistics - ESPECIALLY doctors.

Hearing it spoken will probably have a even greater emotional impact than reading it.

Who would have thought statistics could be made an emotional topic? :)

[amoxtlacatl]

This video should be compulsory viewing in the training of any professional who will deal with statistics - ESPECIALLY doctors.

Hearing it spoken will probably have a even greater emotional impact than reading it.

Who would have thought statistics could be made an emotional topic? :)

[TheLiberalSoup]

wow. profound, inspiring, great video

[lockandkeynes]

so this is all stephen jay gould? your narration sounds like you wrote it lol. you got good speaking skills, dude

[Morkindie]

I read this a few months ago, but thank you for the retelling.

[evilotakuneko]

Who's the loser who downthumbed this video? >:(

[Gidwan]

@evilotakuneko

I was thinking something similar...

[boss1001]

Fantastic

[pdblouin33]

The Lord Jesus brought us together, C0nc0rdance! Just yesterday, I was in the car on a road trip and we were reading on wikipedia about things and we came across Cystic Fibrosis. The median survival age was 47.7 years where we live and someone exclaimed: Wow, imagine being 46 and knowing you're going to die in one year! *Facepalm*

[Mrtitmice]

This is a good demonstration of you valuing the 1% that understands this video, ironic.

[Atalantius]

@Mrtitmice Pulling statistics out of nowhere? Yay.

[Mrtitmice]

@Atalantius the figure I used "only 1% of viewers can understand this video,ironic",

is irrelevant,

my point is 1% = very few. Okay. You are right, I had no bases for the 1% statistic, I change my position to ; very few people understand,ironic. In any case, my comment was an attempt at humor, thats all it was, a joke, further analysis is up to you.

[Ch0mpyFrank]

@Mrtitmice You know 83% of statistics are made up on the spot?

[Mrtitmice]

@Ch0mpyFrank 70% of the people in my room reading your comment agree with you.

[giliellthesecond]

Wow, that was a very personal video.

I don't know much about statistics and probabilities, but the one thing I know is that they never tell you anything about an individual

[lazyperfectionist1]

"Science IS interesting, and if you don't think so, you can fuck off."

Richard Dawkins

[gforce527]

And this is a triumph for "alternative" medicine. I met a prominent american martial artist that actually worked in China as a Traditional Chinese doctor. They placed bets on cancer patients ("If'n it don't make u laugh it'll make you cry") to see who would survive. Those that survived the longest (and recovered) were those that roused themselves using their will and the specific practice of chi-gung as well as accupuncture treatment.

[intermender]

@gforce527 yes but would this work for people who didn't rate gambling or non-falsifyable claims highly? The person in this video attained a sanguine attitude by using his scientific training in reading statistics, no alternative medicine or gambling was used at all, so by your logic, in his case it was a triumph for science not alternative medicine?

[types10000]

"homo sapiens, the sexiest primate of all"

lol

[TheFallibleFiend]

I've read a number of his books. He's an excellent writer.

[JuryDutySummons]

"but a second and unrelated cancer." - I've always wondered about this. Seems that this happens a lot. I wonder if this is because the patent was already susceptible to cancer due to a genetic difference... or perhaps the original treatment being very aggressive made cancer more likely?

Or maybe my view is bias. Maybe this doesn't happen as often as I seem to think it does.

In any event.... wow. Great Job C0nc0rdance. Thank you.

[RDJim]

did he died?

[325982668]

i saw mendacity's boobs on blogTV. that's my favourite species. 

[ebouchelle]

What a great video dedicated to a great man. Steven J Gould one great scientist with an everlasting legacy. We will never forget you.

[wjfox2006]

Great vid - nicely spoken.

[voyagervsbor]

Beautifull

[CBTENGR100]

type in "Run from the cure."....Peace

[lardo444]

the reports of my LIFE are also greatly exaggerated.

peace, lardo.

[DrownedInExile]

Informative and well-presented, thanks!

[Stead3111]

you are easily my favorite youtuber now. hands down.

[sugmegpls]

C0nc0rdance should do a vid on cancertreaments and alternative cancertreatments. Atleast i would have enjoyed such a video.

[Sunhawk7ajj]

Yes this is great, just cause I always like to ask before doing it, can I use this video in Class. (Yes i know its public domain) but my personal ethics say I need to atleast ask before using it. So pleeeeaassee :3 *puppy eyes

[C0nc0rdance]

@Sunhawk7ajj

Of course. Feel free to use my video for education. You can modify it as you like.

[drgoodvibesxxx]

@C0nc0rdance What books of SJG would you recommend? I want to get a book for my younger brother. He is a High school student whom i want to get more interested in science.

[GraeHall]

haha - "homosapiens - the sexiest primate of all".

You've unleashed some gems in the past - but that one - that one I'm going to use myself.

[Larty42]

@C0nc0rdance Uhh... I'm confused. Does this mean that there's a possibility Concordance could be dead in a few years?

Even if you weren't dead in a few years, but 10, that would still be the most unimaginable terrible thing to happen in anyone's life. If I had to hear that I would die in ten years while still being young... I just couldn't get over that. :'(

[MortQ42]

@Larty42 Of course there's a possibility that C0nc0rdance could be dead in a few years... there's a possibility that anyone or anything living could be dead in a few years. In this case, I suspect the possibility is not much higher than anyone elses, as C0nc0rdance is reading SJG's essay, not telling his own story. See the link in the underbar.

[metfan89]

your videos are the best there are on youtube.... another great one well done!

[Noisegator]

Love the painting at 9:32 - LOLZ!

[sharrynuk]

There's no evidence that a positive attitude has any benefit in surviving cancer. I'm not blaming Gould, because science hadn't established that while Gould was still alive, but he's still wrong.

[Ammdar]

@sharrynuk If attitude had absolutely no effect, placebo's would have no effect either, as their effect is largely one of shifting attitude. This is not the case, so I would have to say you are to some degree mistaken on your conclusion.

[CathySander]

@Ammdar: Cancers act independently of what attitudes a person may have about it. Gould was giving a normative claim that people should have positive attitudes, so as to cope with their situation. It need not be confirmed or disconfirmed by science.

[buzzausa]

That was simply beautiful and inspirational.

[HerrHuffington]

@C0nc0rdance

Have you published any books that I can get a hold of? i need a good book to read and I throughly enjoy your videos. If you haven't then it's a damn shame because you could be on the bestsellers lists

[MrLawrenceV]

good video and good health to you.

[JAX301209]

Brilliant vid :)

[Wrath0fKhan]

One video related issue is perhaps worth mentioning, C0nc0rdance. The white colored titles are barely readable on fair background and indeed unreadable on white background. Maybe you will make some adaptations in your coming vids. Thanks for all your efforts! :))

[tbdaemon]

Skew + Kurtosis = Win!

[bighugejake]

4:30 looks photoshopped, lol.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

Hmm... I was particular interested in the fact that he seems to reject the reason/emotion distinction. I'm inclined to agree, and I think there's a fair bit of neuroscience and experimental psych to back him up there. Nonetheless, it's an unpopular view, especially among scientists.

[AlanCFA]

I've read this article of Gould's many times and it is terrific. Survivorship bias, confounding variables, variation among members of the set as well as variations in the distribution itself (skewness, kurtosis, etc) are difficult for people to grasp intuitively, but Gould does a good job of education the layman.

"An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than for illumination " - Andrew Lang

[LFZ15]

Your videos are awesome. Thanks dude.

[xccmx]

Inspiring, simply fucking inspiring. Having lost -all- my grandparents to cancer, this shows me the attitude that everyone should have, an attitude my entire family lost, when it comes to an extremely probable, but not conclusive end to one's life. Keep up your work on these the great videos, for it may help some more than you know.

[playadominical]

this video is one of the greatest achievements in the history of western civilization

[hagenttzd]

Very nicely done video. hope to see a lot more of them...

[PraktikoolSinik]

I knew you were a remarkable person from your ability to crank out videos at the pace you do and still maintain such quality.  And though I wouldn't have thought it possible, I see now, having watched this video, that you are even more remarkable than I thought. Best to you.

[anglicantian]

Everytime I see a new video by you, my face lights up like a christmas tree! You are one of my favorite Youtubers, keep posting.

[mrdaym]

How come the greater the mind the greater the modesty? It's baffling!

[MassesVclasses]

Good reading. I enjoyed that.

[darkdragonsoul99]

I except death in the sense that every thing that lives must die.

I do not except death in the sense I refuse to die any time soon. If I must die I will die in my 100s as far as I'm concerned.

[ProphetTenebrae]

I think the most important thing just about anyone can say about statistics is that the mean (and median) are (by themselves) worthless - the fact that the mean is so regularly tossed around as a statistic that might mean something, says everything one needs to know about the everyman's knowledge of stats.

[TharosTheDragon]

@ProphetTenebrae Both the mean and median mean something whether or not you think so.

The question is what to do with that information.

[Direkin]

I'm actually reading one of his books right now.

[UsernameClayton]

You put a lot of effort into creating these. And for that I thank you.

[kmanpt]

very nice

[scottiepotie]

I always look forward to your youtube profile name coming up on my favorites, and this is why :)

[AcanLord]

Great essay. I never knew Stephen J Gould had that type of cancer

[Everstruggling]

I love how educational this channel is. Thank-you for introducing me not only to this essay, but the one by Isaac Asimov as well.

[Shalek]

Awesome message.

[Akatam0t0ma]

Hopefully Hitchens will endure his cancer as well as Gould did. Even though Gould was the age of Hitchens when he died, too young! :-(

[tommytalks77]

@C0nc0rdance "... and inspirational soul."

So, do you believe in some sort of consciousness (don't wanna say 'life') after death?

[Nerusai]

@tommytalks77

Well, everyone else lives on you know

[DeathKnight67675]

@tommytalks77 I severely doubt concordance believes in floating spirits; however, as you should well know, the term 'soul' is not always intended literally. You could swap the word "soul" in that sentence with "person," "human," "man," or "guy," and it would have exactly the same meaning.

[therealaug]

It scared me when I saw Stephen J Gould in the title of one of C0nc0rdance's videos...

what ive seen your videos have debunked what people have said, so i wondered what SJG could have possibly said that wasnt true... happy to see the opposite =]

[Shalek]

@therealaug I didn't know much about Stephen J Gould and when the video started I thought the same, I worried for a second thinking "wasn't he one of the cool guys :(?". Glad to be wrong :P.

[ripporter]

Great Video, but at 0:50 'Arithmetic" not Arithmatic.

[G0lfYankee]

Utterly fantastic!

[deathweaselx86]

For just a second, I thought that YOU had mesothelioma. I freaked out because one of my favorite bloggers died not long ago from cancer (Jeff Medkeff, look him up, he's dreamy)... Thank you for reading this to us.

[mj9collins]

@deathweaselx86 Same. I must learn to read the titles better it seems :P

[Gnug215]

Statistical poetry? Wow, I never knew...

Thank goodness you survived.

[BXBZ88]

Fascinating.

[Gigano1986]

Most wonderful. <3

[ragestarfish]

To be fair, when you go one step further from statistics to probability theory, you realize that it is not so much a mathematical fact as it is "we just guess it kinda works that way".

[AnonymousElektron]

NO U

[Maxdwolf]

I agree that this is one of the most profound essays, and not just by limiting the scope to cancer and statistics.

[OriMeissa]

Thank you :)

[LeopardFrogPilboxhat]

Conc0rdance owns! Stephen J Gould owns!!

[DarwinsChihuahua]

Was that a Thornton Mellon quote I heard in there?

[Nhurm]

Thanks.

[TheAtheistSwede]

Brilliant.

[martiangrundy]

Capital.

Absolutely illuminating and insightful.

Simply splendid.

*Superlative mode off*

[arizonaviking]

"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms." Stephen Jay Gould

[RevDevilin]

Wow what to say after that ?

Except for move away from Scotland, they have a terrible statistical death rate ;-)

[hilbert54]

@RevDevilin

Yeah but have you seen the statistics for people that move away from Scotland?

[oapeland]

three tumbs up :) awsome

[Mithgaur]

Thank you for sharing :)

[RonBurgundy161]

Is it just me or does Stephen Jay Gould look different in every picture?

[LJonYT]

@TheReasonWhyGuy Ugh! Fine, I concede. I have a sinus headache. I could only muster a brief comment. Knowledge of how to interpret statistics was implied.

[TheReasonWhyGuy]

10:48

Death IS the ultimate enemy IMO :)

[AuntieDiluvian]

Much enjoyed

[FuckYouYouFuck]

Thank you. You provide some of the best content on youtube.

[Sciborg09]

@FuckYouYouFuck that sounds awesome..especially when i look at ur username loll

[skepticallypwnd]

@FuckYouYouFuck Fuck yeah, he does

[MasterOhSo]

beautiful tribute and an education...thanks muchly :)

[LJonYT]

Statistics ftw.

[TheReasonWhyGuy]

@LJonYT "statistics ftw"

NO, knowledge ftw... because statistics are worthless without knowing how to look at them, and what they really mean.

[RyuDarragh]

Don't forget the amazing power of coincidence.

[mrgodbehere]

Fantastic! Perhaps someone should send a copy to Christopher Hitchens?

[OMGitsSEVEN]

@mrgodbehere fantastic idea

[AR333]

@mrgodbehere How would anything said in this video contradict things Hitchens say???

[C0nc0rdance]

@AR333

Christopher Hitchens was recently diagnosed with esophageal cancer. I think people are suggesting he might find hope in this essay from SJ Gould. The overall 5 year survival rate for esophageal cancer is less than 5%, but as Gould discovered, that's not the whole story. Different types of esophageal cancer have 5 yr survival rates that are as high as 80%.

Hope is a rare and precious thing, isn't it?

[thekwizatshaderach]

@C0nc0rdance mendicant nice word.

[thekwizatshaderach]

@C0nc0rdance my niece has aveolar rhabdomyosarcoma.a very frightening diagnosis when it was received.she is receiving proton therapy and chemotherapy and the doctors are now very happy with her progress and things are looking much brighter.i have gained alot of power watching your stuff my friend

[raythetse]

@C0nc0rdance I would have to imagine that whether or not Mr. Hitchens can can quit the smoking and drinking habits will have a great impact on his chances of extending his life past the odds.

[TheRationalOracle]

Loved it.

[MobileThinker]

excellent.

[Answersinbooks]

Fantastic. In addition his preserved words have given me some measure of distraction in what has been a terrible week. Thanks C0nc0rdance :)

[gir908922]

Awesome!  ^__^

[MrErrex]

Very interesting! Thank you for this video. :-)

[Schneboll]

Inspirational!

[OGjimbo]

Intriguing.....

[EvolutionaI]

Is SJG hanging out with Dan Dennett @ 2:21?

[Waldheri]

@EvolutionaI Yep, that looks like Dan.