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From: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Re: Watch them closely when they quote statistics
Message-ID: <569@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 13-Jul-85 00:10:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucsfcgl.569
Posted: Sat Jul 13 00:10:52 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Jul-85 08:22:26 EDT
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Reply-To: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold)
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In article <1520@watdcsu.UUCP> dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) writes:
>I just noticed another interesting feature of the diagram that showed
>women as 35% of the work force... the diagram is a picture of a
>single-file line of men at the back and women at the front.  Not only
>did the person who drew the diagram draw 25% of the figures as women to
>supposedly represent the 35% of the work force that women comprise, but
>the women in the drawing were drawn CLOSER TOGETHER than the men,
>making them look like an even smaller portion of the total.
>-- 
>David Canzi

(This is a followup to a long article on abuse of statistics)

As has been occasionally mentioned (far too rarely to suit me) not only
can statistics be manipulated to favor given points of view, charts are
a great source of abuse.  The best way to educate yourself about what
to be wary of is to buy and read "How to Lie With Statistics", by
Darrell Huff, copyright 1954, published by W. W. Norton & Company,
Inc., New York.  I would suspect it is quite a bit out of print, but it
is commonly available in used book stores.  You will never find
yourself at a loss again when someone spouts statistics which make no
sense, but you can't quite figure out why.  As a matter of fact, you
will see many statistics and charts which you thought make sense
don't.

		Ken Arnold