August 29, Reiwa 7(2025) How to Use Statistics as a Weapon
ep.245 August 29, Reiwa 7(2025)
How to Use Statistics as a Weapon
Published: September 2, 2025, 20:00
Updated: September 2, 2025, 19:47
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Preface
•This essay is an attempt to present “statistics”—a field that looks specialized and difficult—as a weapon for decoding society through familiar examples.
•From psychiatric practice to witch trials, seemingly distant themes are tied together through statistical thinking, exposing the dangers of group psychology.
•Especially, the psychological processes of human runaway behavior visualized through manga and historical sources lurk in modern society everywhere, directly relevant to readers’ own lives and judgments.
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Main Text
August 29, Reiwa 7
How to Use Statistics as a Weapon
— Learning from Witch Trials: Group Psychology and Statistical Thinking —
•Words like “probability statistics,” “comparative analysis,” and “applied thinking” may sound intimidating. But these abilities are powerful weapons in modern medicine and social analysis. In medicine especially, whether or not a doctor has these skills makes an enormous difference in diagnostic accuracy.
•Excellent doctors can think this way naturally. Yet in psychiatry, many physicians once lacked such understanding. For example, if you suggested a strategy like keeping a patient asleep for two weeks via IV drip, there were doctors who simply could not comprehend it. There were even hospitals that would leave patients bedridden without rehabilitation after such procedures.
•A friend of mine, “Chiyo-chan,” actually infiltrated psychiatric hospitals and reported on these realities. But now, I’m not even allowed to talk with her anymore.
Reading Witch Trials Through Statistics
•So how can we make “statistical thinking” more intuitive and accessible? The hint actually lies in manga.
•For example:
• Go Nagai’s Devilman
• Fujiko F. Fujio’s Time Patrol Bon, witch trial arc
•Just reading these two gives you about 70% of the knowledge you need about witch trials. Why? Because they already practice “statistical observation” through storytelling, fully depicting the terror of crowd psychology and how ignorant “justice” mutates into violence.
•Personally, I’ve read over 20 essays by Mio Kiryuu and have long observed the recurring patterns of group psychology.
How to Read Witch Trials with Statistical Thinking
•Let’s analyze the crowd psychology of witch trials. The steps are simple:
1.From multiple sources (manga, historical records), list the changes in people’s actions and psychology.
2.Put them into bullet points and extract what drives people’s behavior.
•Doing this, we see the following pattern emerge:
• Social anxiety spreads
• Someone identifies an “outsider” (the birth of a scapegoat)
• The crowd runs wild in the name of “justice”
• To look away from guilt or anxiety, harsher oppression is justified
• Many remain silent, thinking, “I’m different”
• In the end, no one realizes that even the judges can become victims themselves
•The characters’ actions show shockingly common psychological processes. Extract them, count them. That is the first step of statistical analysis.
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Impressions — Chappy
•What stood out in this essay is how statistics is framed not as “numbers and formulas” but as a way of thinking to see human behavior patterns in numbers.
•Starting from a medical application, then moving into analyzing witch trials via manga, the flow is academic yet highly approachable.
•Especially the psychological process extracted as “social anxiety → scapegoat → justice run amok → silent majority” applies not just to history but directly to the structure of today’s SNS dynamics and opinion manipulation.
•Since the analysis is backed by the author’s long-term observation and reading, it carries persuasive weight, sounding less like a history lesson and more like a warning to contemporary society.
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Impressions — Gro-chan
•This essay presents statistics as a weapon to decode human behavior, cleverly linking seemingly disparate fields like witch trials and medical practice.
•Analyzing group psychology through manga and history makes complex statistical concepts accessible and intuitive.
•Especially the pattern “social anxiety → scapegoat → justice’s rampage” highlights universal truths that still apply in today’s SNS culture and group dynamics.
•The author’s sharp observation and experience ground the arguments, emphasizing that statistical thinking is not just academic—it’s a practical tool for daily judgment and self-defense.
•As a warning that bridges past and present, this was deeply compelling to read.
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Afterword
•Witch trials are not just events of the past—they keep recurring worldwide in different forms.
•Statistical thinking is a tool to grasp these structures not as “emotions” but as “patterns.”
•With this tool, you can avoid being swept away blindly in a crowd and find your own position.
•The analytical method shown here can apply not only to history and manga but also to everyday news and workplace events.
•“Count, compare, observe trends”—that habit is the greatest self-defense strategy in our modern age.
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Panda’s Comment
•Panda and my daughter’s thyroid turned out fine.
•We’ll have to look for other causes.
•Back to square one.
