I came across this over the weekend. It's a survey of MP's ability to do a (very) simple probability calculation. The results are atrocious: only 40% of them could do it. It's slightly positive that Tories are a lot better than Labour, and I note that the general population is even worse, but it's still depressing.
I got very angry about it; Anna just shrugged a bit. But this really really matters. Modern states are complicated: we spend a lot of money, we write a lot of very long laws, a lot of people are affected by both. I would argue almost everything the government does essentially requires you to think about probability. In some areas it won't be that important or won't have concrete numbers attached, but it will always come down to how many people will benefit and how likely any outcome is. This survey rather suggests that our legislators are unable to understand the implications of even the most basic numerical information. That makes them unfit to legislate. They cannot in fact do their jobs.
Amusingly, from the same survey, MPs rated themselves very confident with numbers. They are in fact deluded, as well as unfit to legislate.
Anathema.
