Editing Ecological fallacy (section)

{{Short description|Formal fallacy in statistical interpretation}}
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An '''ecological fallacy''' (also '''ecological ''inference'' fallacy'''<ref>{{cite book |isbn=978-0-7914-5015-4 |title=Culture, technology, communication: towards an intercultural global village |author=Charles Ess |author2=Fay Sudweeks |publisher=SUNY Press |year=2001 |page=90 |quote=The problem lies with the 'ecological fallacy' (or fallacy of division)—the impulse to apply group or societal level characteristics to individuals within that group.}}</ref> or '''population fallacy''') is a [[formal fallacy]] in the interpretation of [[statistic]]al data that occurs when [[inference]]s about the nature of individuals are deduced from inferences about the group to which those individuals belong. "Ecological fallacy" is a term that is sometimes used to describe the [[fallacy of division]], which is not a statistical fallacy. The four common statistical ecological fallacies are: confusion between ecological correlations and individual correlations, confusion between group average and total average, [[Simpson's paradox]], and confusion between higher average and higher likelihood. From a statistical point of view, these ideas can be unified by specifying proper statistical models to make formal inferences, using aggregate data to make unobserved relationships in individual level data.<ref>{{Cite book |last=King |first=Gary |url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691012407/a-solution-to-the-ecological-inference-problem |title=A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem |date=1997 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-01240-7 |language=en}}</ref>