Hey, gang, was just looking for a bit of assistance:

 

Do any of you have a misleading statistic available? We are taking a look at some misleading statstics in my Social Statistics course and I was just wondering if any of you have a favorite?

 

It can be from the left. It can be from the right. It can be from nowhere in particular--i.e. a graph or chart from Cosmo or something to that end.

 

A link? A suggestion?

 

Soxtalk never disappoints. Thanks.

My personal favorite is the unemployment percentage numbers, which don't really reflect how many people in this country are actively looking for work very well at all.

My personal favorite is the unemployment percentage numbers, which don't really reflect how many people in this country are actively looking for work very well at all.

 

Ah, how could I forget?

 

That really is an excellent example and one we've actually spent a considerable amount of time on.

 

I'll try to dig that one up.

 

Any others? Maybe from the extreme right or left?

Couple good ones not from politics...the usual "a billion people are watching" the Super Bowl or the Oscars. Usually it's like 10 million outside this country for both of them. A billion people have it transmitted to television sets that they can watch. Most don't. Quite a few people sleep through it, for example.

 

Here's one from the left we talked about a few days ago...The American Prospect seems to have come out with a study trying to say that Abramoff's tribes gave less to Dems after he was working with them than before, but they screwed around with the number of years they sampled on each side to make it look better.

 

Oh, there's quite a few obnoxiously misleading ones about ANWR from both sides. The left has a habit of saying that ANWR could only supply 6 months of oil for the U.S., but that's if you could possibly pump the whole thing out in exaclty 6 months and have the U.S. use no oil from anywhere else. In reality it would last for decades, but not at nearly that high of a rate.

 

On the other side, there's a few others. Like how the Republicans like to say that the bill only allows for development on 2000 acres of land in ANWR or something like that. Yeah, that's fine, but that's permanent development. They don't count the area in-between buildings, they don't count temporary frozen roads, they don't count all the other area that animals will suddenly not go because they're surrounded by oil rigs, etc. They also like to say that it'll displace our oil imports from Saudi Arabia for decades...which is true, but is only true because only a very small sliver of Saudi Arabia's oil actually comes to the U.S., most of it goes to countries closer to the Middle East, like Europe or Asia. Saudi Arabia would still export almost exactly as much oil per day whether or not we drill in ANWR, and they'll still get almost as much money, just a question of how much each side is buying.

The best baseball players in the game only hit .300.

 

30% is not good. Just ask your professor.

How about the Million Man March?

Damaso Marte's ERA the last 2 years: 3.42 and 3.77. Doesn't SEEM too bad for a lefty RP, but it's indeed a misleading stat.

Ah yes, the old 3 types of lies.

 

Lies, dirty lies, and statistics

 

Off of the top of my head...

 

-Anytime you hear the words "massive budget cuts" you are usually looking at a reduction in growth rates, not actual cuts.

-Any baseball stat where you specifiy a situation to the point where you are looking at a very small sample size, thus rendering it meaningless in terms of chi squared.

-Stock prices as a relation to the relative quality of a company. See also NASDAQ in 1999, Google in January 2006.

-Any media poll that has people call in or vote on-line.

 

Let me keep thinking if you need more.

What bad statistics and design can lead to: nonsense.

How To Lie With Statistics

How To Lie With Statistics

I've read that, a real easy read that teaches you the basics of statistic use moreso than the math and theory behind the statistics. Its an ok book, I just don't know why anyone would read it unless its for a class or a job.

Tyson Chandler leads the league in rebounds per minute for the last 12 games means he is the bulls mvp.