How To Misuse Statistics

Attila Dimedici writes "This story does a great job of showing how statistics are misused by comparing the incidence of voting for Democrats to the incidence of cancer. While the story has a strong ideological bias, it does a good job of poking fun at the way politicians (and others) misuse statistics."

Comments

Strong Ideological Bias?

[GiveBenADollar]

Ahh, but if a similar study was published against republicans it would be unbiased and informative about misuse of statistics. Here's an easy test for political bias. If a news agency lists a politician involved in a scandal and does not report (or buried in the story.) the political affiliation of the politician they are of party X. If the news agency blankets the story with party connections including ties to prominent political figures they are of party Y. Read/Watch for a while and you will quickly be able to fill in the X and the Y for most media outlets.

Re:There are three types of lies.

[JWSmythe]

No, no, 100% of the sample group were surprised by TFA.

    Of course, "TFA" is the street name of our carefully selected poll taker. He's 6'5", a serious body builder, and covered in tattoos. He waited in a dark alley, and would jump out and ask the simple question "Are you surprised motherf***er?"

    Another thing we noted in the study was that conducting such a study can be very profitable. 60% of the people dropped their wallet or purse. The other 40% groveled before dropping their belongings.

    Next time, we're aiming for a larger sample group.