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When Numbers Lies
MIND
MAGAZINE | Every time you open a newspaper, a magazine or a book,
you'll see some numbers and stats. They come from somewhere, may it
be a national statistics office, an organization or an individual
that has done research. These numbers can give a brief overview of
the world surrounding ourselves. The way experts collect all the raw
data to come up with all these clear-cut numbers is an important
part of the process. How we see numbers through our social filter
and education plays the most important role when seeing facts. It is
the hardest thing to change in one's mind.
Data handling is done by clerks or other people and so can lead to
errors we're all humans, right?). Can you imagine yourself in front
of a computer inputting thousands of numbers all day long? In 1999,
in Saskatoon Canada), the fire department was heavily criticized by
the city officials because of a slow response time using a new 911
dispatching system. But a month's data in an urban area fire station
was compiled in just three days and errors happened in data inputs.
The average response time seemed 1 to 2 minutes longer than before.
In fact, the real figures were far more better, by a number of
seconds that can save a house from completely burning down).
In 1992, in New York, some molecular biologists deducted that every
family tree led to Eve remember the oldest woman body we found in
Africa some time ago). That surprised many people, after all we
can't all have our origins in a single person. That strange outcome
results from a flaw in the design of the software used to compile
the data. The application focused on finding the family tree that
had the least mutation in order to track down the same genes. Such
an assumption coming from the part of the researcher led to indeed
strange results. In fact, genetic codes do mutate slightly from
generation to generation, like Mr. Wolpoff from the University of
Michigan declared in reaction to the surprising news. Of course,
most biases have been corrected since then, but always look behind
the numbers.
A very frequent error is related to the interpretation we give to
some numbers. In his very impressive book The Skeptical
Environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg talks about that. For example, in an
impressive 500-page report, an Oxford Scholar (Peter
Gleick) assumed that the percentage of people not having access to
water would rise in-between 1990 and 2000. In fact, it went down by
10-12%, according to various estimations. When projecting numbers
for the 1990s, he simply assumed that no one would newly get access
to water in the decade, resulting in very odd numbers. In fact, many
more people did gain access to water. That wouldn't be so bad if the
number would not have been repeated in various publications and used
so widely by organizations to justify all their actions. It is true
that we must do something, water is vital after all. But things are
getting better, not worse.
You've probably seen polls on the internet. Often, you'll see news
anchor asking a question on TV and then telling the viewers to
participate. The information is then used on the following day's
editorial to supposedly describe people's opinions. This is the best
example of biased statistics. Each TV channel and each web site
targets a specific audience, whether it be segmented regionally or
socio-economically. We have absolutely no background information
about the people answering. Does participation really reflect
society's thoughts as a whole? These numbers are not reliable
because they are not based on anything tangible. That's what I mean
when I say that the way data is collected is very important.
Many of us will form opinions when seeing some statistics. But don't
forget that some stats are collected on specific objects only, not
the accompanying factors. For example, when seeing that thousands
and thousands of seals are killed every
year, one would quickly oppose himself to these horrible and unnecessary
deaths. But we have eliminated the seals'
natural predators, and their population is growing without control.
It has played a significant role in fish stock reductions throughout
the Saint-Laurent Gulf, although pollution is also to blame here.
The worst error is also human, but this time it's related to
judgment. Never forget this: the person that handles out the numbers
also has political and moral opinions. It is an individual with
emotions seeking to convince you of something, just like right now.
There's a lot of data out there, and journalists select what they
want to. For example, many studies were made on the relationship
between silicone implants and breast cancer in the 1990s. On the
other hand, studies showing negative relationships between the two
were overlooked, such as the 1999 National Academy of Sciences
research. What we see in the media is not always true. There are 6
billion opinions on everything from the way rice should be
cultivated to whether or not we should drop nuclear power. And out
of these, how many are those of the people who choose the
information you're looking at on TV.
Don't be afraid to trust numbers when you see them in the
newspapers, they're not necessarily flawed or wrong. They could be,
however, and you must be suspicious when seeing numbers that look
too strange or that look over-exaggerated. One of the threats to the
veracity of stats is slowly disappearing: errors in the collection
of raw data. Computers and more rigorous research protocols have
greatly helped. The other threat, human this one, is not about to
disappear! People will always have opinions and feelings on specific
things. The good aspect is that indicators like GDP or the poverty
rate will exist for a long time and will always give us of an idea
of the world surrounding ourselves. But manipulators are always
there, somewhere, trying to use supposedly facts at their advantage.
Beware...
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