TED演讲:为什么你应该热爱统计学(2)

 Now, it's not just an English problem. 实际上，不仅英国存在这样的的问题。

OECD this year released some figures looking at numeracy in young people, OECD今年发布了一些关于青少年计算能力的数据，

and leading the way, the USA -- nearly 40 percent of young people in the US have low numeracy. 名单里领先的是美国，大约40%的美国青少年算术能力低下。

Now, England is there too, but there are seven OECD countries with figures above 20 percent. 英国也名列其中，但是有七个OECD国家的数据在20%以上。

That is a problem, because it doesn't have to be that way. 这就有问题了。因为情况本不必如此。

If you look at the far end of this graph, you can see the Netherlands and Korea are in single figures. 在图的最右端，可以看到荷兰，韩国都是个位数。

So there's definitely a numeracy problem that we want to address. 所以，这里绝对有一个算术问题需要我们解决。

Now, as useful as studies like these are, 和这些研究同样有用的是，

I think we risk herding¹ people inadvertently into one of two categories; that there are two kinds of people: 我认为我们无意间轻率地将人群分成了两个类别，也就是这么两种人：

those people that are comfortable with numbers, that can do numbers, and the people who can't. 对数字可以应用自如、能够把玩数字的人，和做不到这一点的人。

And what I'm trying to talk about here today is to say that I believe that is a false dichotomy. 今天，我想要探讨的是，我认为这是个错误的二分法。

It's not an immutable² pairing.  这并不是一成不变的组合。

I think you don't have to have tremendously high levels of numeracy to be inspired by numbers,  我认为，你不需要高超的算术能力才能被数字所启发，

and that should be the starting point to the journey ahead. 这应该成为前路的起点。

And one of the ways in which we can begin that journey, for me, is looking at statistics. 对于我来说，这条路的起始点之一是着眼于统计学。

Now, I am the first to acknowledge that statistics has got somewhat of an image problem. 这里，我要首先承认。统计是有那么一点儿画面方面的问题的。

1 herding   

中畜群

参考例句：

• The little boy is herding the cattle. 这个小男孩在放牛。
• They have been herding cattle on the tableland for generations. 他们世世代代在这高原上放牧。

2 immutable   

adj.不可改变的，永恒的

参考例句：

• Nothing in the world is immutable.世界没有一成不变的东西。
• They free our minds from considering our world as fixed and immutable.它们改变着人们将世界看作是永恒不变的观点。