The next time CNN tells you “73% of so-and-so think…” remember this statment from Hans-Georg Gadamer:
…statistics…are such excellent means of propaganda because they let the “facts” speak and hence simulate an objectivity that in reality depends on the legitimacy of the questions asked.
It reminds me of the joke “Ninety percent of statistics are made up on the spot”. Do not let the “stats” fool you. They are not “objective mathematics”. Every poll is asked a certain way to certain types of people from certain places using a certain language (or sometimes languages) while being presented with certain bias.
the archives near Emmaus 
The best part about that joke is that the statistic itself is made up on the spot. It could be “Sixty percent of statistics are made p on the spot” or “ninety-five” or whatever you want. 🙂
43% of all statistics are wrong.
I’ll say 38% are right, 27% wrong, and 35% indifferent! It looks good to have more categories!
My favorite statistical trick runs like this: “90% of Americans [that is, of the 2000 Americans or so that we asked] believe teenagers drink too much”, which is then given the headline: “90% of American teenagers drink too much!”
One of these things is not like the other…
66% of the time, it works, every time.
Like all sources, figures need to be treated with caution and the motive for issuing them questioned. At least, that’s what I learned in my journalistic experience class. Knowing this, journalists manipulate figures to convey a particular stance, just like they do all their other sources for “facts.” It’s called research 🙂
Ah yes, research!
A large portion of both my statistic classes dealt with trying to weed out bad statistic reports. It is the NBC Today Show mentality of taking extremely complicated findings and trying to simplify them for general audiences. It drives me crazy! Often what is reported is not at all what the researcher was trying to find. It does make for sensational tv though. 😉
And sensational TV = money and money trumps truthfulness. It all makes sense.
@Brian: You have solved the equation. Now make up a statistic related to it now!
When I was taking psychology classes, surveys and the statistics drawn from them were not considered strong evidence for research. I doubt psychology has changed its mind on that in the ten years that I’ve been away.
@Josh: OK, 93% of statistics are horse pucky.
@JohnDave: I assume things have remained the same as well.
Mark Driscoll, in his book “Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe,” said that the ESV is roughly 99% accurate to what the originals were. I laughed out loud.
@Jeremy: I don’t even know how to process that stat. Does he not understand language itself? How can we break it into percentiles?
I know right? It is co-authored by a guy named Gerry Breshears who apparently teaches at Western, so I’m assuming at least one person agrees with him.
And actually I just looked it up; he doesn’t say “ESV” specifically, but English-translated Bibles in general or “the Bible we have.” Even so, this is still very difficult for me to agree with, lol.
One good rule of thumb regarding Breshears’ co-authoring with Driscoll is to know that he doesn’t sign off on everything Driscoll says and writes. Breshears is a very smart man and sometimes I think that gets buried by some of the other stuff written by the other person.
Ah, good to note. It’s hard for me to agree with much of Driscoll’s strong, black-and-white language even though I haven’t studied the subjects very much; I could only imagine how a professor might feel. I have yet to even reach the fourth chapter of the book and I’ve been “reading” it for a good three months. He doesn’t open the discussions of controversial topics very well.
It seems Driscoll is good at leading people in the ways of Jesus, but when it comes to anything related to Biblical criticism or scholarship, he probably isn’t the right guy to go to.
… Which makes me wonder why I even started reading the book in the first place? :-/…
As much as I appreciate Gerry I couldn’t get myself to read the book because of Driscoll.