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Let's say you know the feelings of 100 coworkers on this issue. That's still 100/85000 employees, or 0.1%. Not exactly a representative sample size. Now, it's
by ordinaryperson 8y ago
Let's say you know the feelings of 100 coworkers on this issue. That's still 100/85000 employees, or 0.1%. Not exactly a representative sample size.
Now, it's entirely possible 60% of the employees actually are outraged, but we have no way of knowing outside a survey.
Hence the NYT is cherry-picking an opinion based on anecdotal data (that just so happens to positively reflect on their earlier coverage), when it's also entirely possible that 80% of Googlers don't really care.
The headline and story imply the NYT has a firm handle on how the bulk of 85,000 people think, which is not the case.
- nostrademons 8y agoFWIW, if you have a sample size of 100 out of a population of 85000 and observe 60% of your coworkers care, there's a 95% confidence level that the true number of people who care will be within 50-70%. There's a 99% confidence that it'll be within 47.5-72.5%. https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm "80% of Googlers don't really care" would be an extreme outlier, statistically.
- jefftk 8y agoOnly if your sample is random, and my sample is mostly the Google Cambridge office.