Okay. I’ll bite:
Including that one?
P.S.: That venerable classic How to Lie with Statistics is still in print. Thou shalt read it.
Is that a threat or a promise?
Damn, Moose got here just before I got to drop my totally witty one-liner!
Sam
A thousand pardons. (Not every day one gets to outdo GaWd.)
Just 3%? Look at how many people believe the Bible is 100% accurate. 
You know, I’m just really having a hard time believing all the numbers that these recent rash of polls are offering… obscene percentages of Americans that believed that Iraq was involved in 9/11, that Saddam had WMDs, that the Bible is infalliable, etc, etc, etc. I just don’t see these attitudes in day to day interactions with people and, even given the possibility my sample base may be skewed, find it implausible that these percentages are accurate.
Polls have their place but as evidenced by the pre-election and exit polls just witnessed, these frequently are just wrong as all get out.
I have my doubts about the perceptions and values of many Americans but some of these suggested viewpoints are just a little too fantastic to be taken seriously.
Consider yourself whooshed.
I’m so confused!
How am I whooshed?
(By the by: the line “Thou shalt read it” was addressed to the general populance, and not just to gobear.)
Inside joke. In fact, 79% of statistics are made up with a 4% confidence interval.
Don’t you hate it when your own joke is explained back to you?
I, too, would like to see the nuts and bolts of this poll before I pass judgement, but it’s still clear to me that as a nation we appear to be sliding backwards intellectually. The hottest topics of the day seem to revolve around whether we should move forward or slip back into the dark ages. I only hope that the noises we are hearing are death throes of ignorance.
I once speculated that the intense homophobia we are seeing as of late is the swansong of ignorance, and the harbinger of a more enlightened age. I’d like to include school prayer, creationism, and holy war into that hope. It will be my last great thought before the Inquisition comes to get me.
The “79% of all statistics” was obviously pulled from thin air and was intended to be read facetiously.
And given that I pointed out the problems with sampling bias and that there was no mention of the confidence interval might have tipped you off that not only do I own a copy of “How to Lie with Statistics,” but I’ve even read it.
Here’s a useful Web site for people to learn statistics basics to better interpret numbers in the news.
". . . besides, 79% of all statistics are made up. . . . "
“Including that one?”
Yes, including that one. That’s the joke. It’s like saying “All generalizations are wrong”, or “Everything I say is a lie.”
How on earth would they teach Creation “science”? Have a little slide show showing the evolution from Pat Robertson to James Dobson or some such?
On the other hand, it may be a good idea to get the kids studying for themselves; “We say God created the humans right off, try and prove us wrong. First one who does gets an A.”
And while we’re on book club recommendations, I strongly advise folks interested in math and the news to read John Allen Paulos’s invaluable ** A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper**. Larry Gonick’s The Cartoon Guide to Statistics, despite its name, is an excellent introductory primer on basic stats. (In fact, you should buy all of Goncik’s books. Go. Now.) And if you’re just fed up with the anti-science and procredulity lobby in the US and Western Europe, you should pick up the book I’m currently reading, Idiot Proof by Francis Wheen.
What intense homophobia? Do you mean MORE inetense than in the recent past? There certainly are some strong anti-gay sentiments out there, but homosexuality in the public sphere is a relatively new phenomenon. I’m not going to argue that gays currently have the same “rights and privileges” as straights do, but they have more than they had 10 years ago, and more again than they had 25 years ago. This country is getting more gay-friendly, not less. It might not be moving at the pace you like, but that’s a different debate.
As for evolution, there are lots of factors working here:
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It’s not that easy to understand. Most people take a year or two of a foreign language in high school, but how many of them remember even 20 words of that language now? Evolution is no different in that respect-- even those not opposed to it on religious grounds are going to have a poor understanding of it once they leave biology class behind.
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It has no practical application for the vast majority of people. What are the negative consequences of not knowing about evoloution? For 99% of the populace, none at all. So, there is no reinforcement mechanism for retaining any knowledge one might once have had on the subject.
and finally:
- There is no single idea that rocks the very foundation of Christianity like evolution, especially human evolution, does. Many, many people simply can’t reconcile the two concepts, and so go for the one which is more comforting. I honestly don’t see how people who claim to accept that humans have an immortal soul (which also, btw, needs to be saved from eternal damnation) can also accept that humans evolved in a continuous line from non-human ancestors. If I were a Christian, there is no way I could accept human evolution unless I closed my mind at some point.
Now that I’ve gotten things thoroughly muddled . . .
I figured the 79% figure was made from whole cloth and was having some fun with it (it immediately brought to mind that grand old line, “All generalities are false - including this one”).
Further affiant sayeth not - I’ve crossed swords with statisticians before in these parts, and I ain’t goin’ there.
All right, it’s time to just be honest here.
Ignorance is not only winning, it’s winning to such an extent that its ultimate victory over knowledge is a foregone conclusion. You look at the way things are going and project the curve into the future and it’s obvious that the black line will sink beneath the red line in the near future.
Only one thing to do now … thrown down your books and vote Republican. And we’ll have to change the subhead on the masthead … Fought Ignorance 1973-2005, now a Clear Channel Website, thank the Lord!
As with the PIPA results which many found unbelievable, there is a tendency to consider the results a fluke. However, 1000 people is a highly reliable sample space, so long as the respondents are chosen randomly (and I would be very surprised if an august institution like Newsweek ignored such basic statistical requirements).
These kinds of figures, like the PIPA ones and those regarding the earth and sun, are important indicators of how the US might be different to other industrialised democracies (who are no paragons of well-informed diligence, incidentally, but they do seem to ‘score’ rather better in these types of polls). I would be interested to hear the explanations for these results proposed by supporters of the current administration.
Yes, that’s pretty much what I mean. Homophobia has always been with us, but I can’t recall a time when it’s been so talked about, nor when there has been such a mobilization of forces to advance it. If any former president has suggested a constitutional amendment to limit the rights of gays, it hasn’t been in the sphere of my awareness. Clearly battle lines are now being drawn on a scale we haven’t before seen in recent history.
And yet many do. The Catholic Church does. All of my Christian friends do. In fact, I’m not really sure there are many Christians who don’t which don’t somehow or other fall under the umbrella of fundamentalist, evangelical, or born again. Or undeducated.
How are these two concepts mutually exclusive?
Evolution certainly happens, and is the result of the divine plan. God created the universe and its physical laws, and, like a chess master that can see thirty moves ahead, set in play the events that ultimately led to the formation of life and, even more ultimately, the formation of human beings, at which point they were ensouled. Where is the contradiction?