About democracy

Yes, feel free to disagree with me but you'll never have that smug complacency of knowing what it's like to be right

I think Moke demonstrated that in the last line of his post.

Cognito, ergo sum.

Worked with a younger fellow with big education , he had studied statistics and worked in public adm. , he told me “give me the numbers and I will make ‘em show whatever you want” .....

Craig said:

Worked with a younger fellow with big education , he had studied statistics and worked in public adm. , he told me “give me the numbers and I will make ‘em show whatever you want” .....

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You see that everywhere. We see it a lot currently, when it’s done well it’s dangerous, but often it’s done really, really, badly where people use a static and then add their own narrative. For example, a case being made earlier in the pandemic that women were suffer g more than men led with the statistic “39% of cases were female” duh yeah so 61% were male then!

You’ll ALWAYS see people selectively crossing the stats that make their point and ignoring those that don’t.

And you’ll see people use different measure to make a point, for example saying 33% sounds kinda small so in order to make it sound bigger people will say ‘a third of people died’ etc.

This pandemic has provided a huge case study with use of statistics, especially by the media.

It's not even the numbers sometimes.... Many refuse to accept ANY narrative that contradicts their own... Brexit, anybody??

Fast Eddie said:

For example, a case being made earlier in the pandemic that women were suffer g more than men led with the statistic “39% of cases were female” duh yeah so 61% were male then!
This pandemic has provided a huge case study with use of statistics, especially by the media.

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Nowadays, are you really certain that 61% are men?
Not only media, obviously politicians use selective reading of statistics too.
Except he who can't read.

Mike40M said:

Nowadays, are you really certain that 61% are men?

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Good point!

I think that depends on whether you look at it from a position of biology... or politics...

so what has happened that we are back to only 2 genders?

Mike40M said:

Nowadays, are you really certain that 61% are men?
Not only media, obviously politicians use selective reading of statistics too.
Except he who can't read.

Click to expand...

EstuaryBoy said:

It's not even the numbers sometimes.... Many refuse to accept ANY narrative that contradicts their own... Brexit, anybody??

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Very true... My argument in favour of Brexit was that we have enough bigots of our own and do not need to import more from Eastern Europe.Went down worse than the proverbial lead balloon ..

bill said:

so what has happened that we are back to only 2 genders?

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Didn't the Sioux have five?