4 ms·

I think "no idea" is an entirely reasonable summary of the magnitude of the uncertainty.

• Dylan16807 9mo ago
  To me, "no idea" suggests the number is likely off by an order of magnitude or more, and even the worst case country in this article was less than 2x with bigger countries having better numbers.
  • tjwebbnorfolk 9mo ago
    That might be true in measuring abstract absolutes. But I'd agree that if you don't even know if your population is larger or smaller than it was 40 years ago, then it's perfectly fair to say that you have "no idea" what's going on.
  • ericyd 9mo ago
    To me, "no idea" simply means we don't have strong evidence to support any given conclusion, which I think is a well-defended position from the OP.
    • Dylan16807 9mo ago
      Widening your claimed range makes your evidence for the claim stronger. In this situation we can make useful conclusions with strong evidence, with population ranges that are annoyingly wide but not that wide.