lies,damned lies and statistics
1. Introduction
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point.
The term was popularised in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
This Line stresses on the fact that common errors, both intentional and unintentional, associated with the interpretation of statistics, and how these errors can lead to inaccurate conclusions.
It is a phrase attributed to the power associated with figures. The phrase is commonly used to doubt statistics given to support government positions.
2. The ideology behind this phrase
Numbers and formulas are supposed to represent "objective scientific data" you cannot deny and examined by intelligent and experienced experts. Now the complete liar wants his forgeries to look undeniably "scientific", so why not use the magic of numbers that the not-so-math-literate masses could never deny? They say that statistics don't lie, and while that may be true, liars do use statistics.
So it is with much that you read and hear. Averages and relationships and trends and graphs are not always what they seem. There may be more in them than meets the eye, and there may be a good deal less.
The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a factminded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify. Statistical methods and statistical terms are necessary in reporting the mass data of social and economic trends, business conditions, 'opinion' polls, the census. But without writers who use the words with honesty and understanding and readers who know what they mean, the result can only be semantic nonsense.
3. Use of this phrase in various places:-
In
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point.
The term was popularised in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
This Line stresses on the fact that common errors, both intentional and unintentional, associated with the interpretation of statistics, and how these errors can lead to inaccurate conclusions.
It is a phrase attributed to the power associated with figures. The phrase is commonly used to doubt statistics given to support government positions.
2. The ideology behind this phrase
Numbers and formulas are supposed to represent "objective scientific data" you cannot deny and examined by intelligent and experienced experts. Now the complete liar wants his forgeries to look undeniably "scientific", so why not use the magic of numbers that the not-so-math-literate masses could never deny? They say that statistics don't lie, and while that may be true, liars do use statistics.
So it is with much that you read and hear. Averages and relationships and trends and graphs are not always what they seem. There may be more in them than meets the eye, and there may be a good deal less.
The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a factminded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify. Statistical methods and statistical terms are necessary in reporting the mass data of social and economic trends, business conditions, 'opinion' polls, the census. But without writers who use the words with honesty and understanding and readers who know what they mean, the result can only be semantic nonsense.
3. Use of this phrase in various places:-
In