Mimi 0 books view quotes. May 19, PM. Kerkko books view quotes. Apr 10, AM. Karen books view quotes. Mar 11, PM. Tanja books view quotes. Oct 20, AM. Marisol 34 books view quotes. Oct 14, PM. Jodi 2, books view quotes. Aug 10, PM. Marie books view quotes. Jul 30, PM. Lafurys books view quotes. Jul 29, PM. J2d books view quotes. May 19, AM. Al books view quotes. We have been raised to think that numbers represent absolute fact, that in a math class there is one and only one correct answer.
But less emphasis is put on the fact that in the real world numbers don't convey any information without units, or some other frame of reference.
The blurring of the line between the number and the quantity has left us vulnerable to the ways in which statistics can deceive us. By poorly defining or incorrectly defining numbers, contemporary audiences can be manipulated into thinking opinions are fact. Numbers don't have to be manufactured to be misleading.
One of the most common misunderstandings concerns the precision of a measurement. Whenever you assign a quantity to something in the physical world, that number will only be as precise as your method of measurement allows. If I measure a table by comparing it to my wingspan, I can say it's about six feet long, but if I use a tape measure I can acquire a more precise measurement of 6 feet 5.
This is so you can find not just how many are false, but the exact percentage which are false. After that point, you can run a simple cross-reference data query on the results to fetch the count of statistics that are not based in fact. Then, using advanced rules of grammar and context, you must determine which of the factless statistics were created then and there, and which were quoted or culled from an earlier citation.
Once you have those numbers, simply add them all together, and divide the freshly coined statistics by the total count of all statistics to easily determine what percentage was made up on the spot.
You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. I was in the midst of sizing the mobile handset markets in 3 regions: US, Europe and Asia. I had to read each report, synthesis it and then come up with our best estimate of the markets going forward.
But all of the data projections were so different so I decided to call some of the research companies and ask how they derived their data. I got the analyst who wrote one of the reports on the phone and asked how he got his projections. He must have been about As scientific as that. I called another agency. They were more scientific. They had interviewed telecom operators, handset manufacturers and corporate buyers.
I grilled the analyst a bit. I told this story to every consultant I knew at the time. Nobody was surprised. I wish it ended there. They, too, were staffed with super smart twenty somethings.
But these people went to slightly better schools Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, University of Chicago and got slightly better grades. They took the data from the analysts. We all took that data as the basis for our reports. Then the data got amplified. Even more so with journalists. They were as hoodwinked as everybody was.
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