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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain (maybe) [1] The general public thinks statistics is some magical thing that ha

by kator 12y ago

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain (maybe) [1] The general public thinks statistics is some magical thing that has predictive powers bestowed upon it by the power of math. Invoking statistics in a conversation can often shut other people down and get the "point" across someone is trying to make while making it hard to attack because it's based on "statistics". Religions tend to operate this way, some amazing central figure said it thus it's true. I wonder if this is just a side effect of the human mind that we hope for something that knows the answer so we don't have to figure it out ourselves or that we can hope there is some sort of order in the chaos of our lives. Without the hope that there is some order to our observed chaos perhaps many people fear they have no chance in the world and are like leaves floating down a river out to the sea. I personally don't mind the floating down the sea and once in the while I feel like I can at least peddle to the shore for a quick adventure. But in the end we're all floating on the river of time and exposed to a massive amount of chaos that just doesn't really make sense from our vantage point. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statisti... PS: Sorry feeling a bit philosophical this morning…

danudey 12y ago
It's easy to look at a graph and draw conclusions, but there are a lot of examples out there of disingenuous graphs which take some concentration to discern their issues, and the graphs usually aren't displayed on TV screens long enough for there to be an issue. As an example, this one from Fox News: http://foxnewsgraphs.tumblr.com/day/2012/08/04 http://foxnewsgraphs.tumblr.com/day/2012/08/04 The graph seems pretty straightforward; government spending as a percentage of GDP has gone up under Obama from 20% to about 25%, while FDR kept it roughly the same, hovering around 10%. The graph, of course, ends at 1938. I'm sure if we extended it for the rest of FDR's term, we'd see a different picture of government spending, and probably a more accurate comparison given the huge increase in military spending thanks to a constant, unending war on whoever is available.

by kator 12y ago

danudey 12y ago

It's easy to look at a graph and draw conclusions, but there are a lot of examples out there of disingenuous graphs which take some concentration to discern their issues, and the graphs usually aren't displayed on TV screens long enough for there to be an issue. As an example, this one from Fox News: http://foxnewsgraphs.tumblr.com/day/2012/08/04 http://foxnewsgraphs.tumblr.com/day/2012/08/04 The graph seems pretty straightforward; government spending as a percentage of GDP has gone up under Obama from 20% to about 25%, while FDR kept it roughly the same, hovering around 10%. The graph, of course, ends at 1938. I'm sure if we extended it for the rest of FDR's term, we'd see a different picture of government spending, and probably a more accurate comparison given the huge increase in military spending thanks to a constant, unending war on whoever is available.