Chance News 93: Difference between revisions
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==Forsooth== | ==Forsooth== | ||
Ignorance is bliss, or is it?<br> | |||
“I remember a few years ago looking at peer rankings of graduate departments and being delighted to discover that among statistics departments my own alma mater was in the top ten (although my trust in the process was tempered by the knowledge that, despite its lofty ranking, Princeton’s statistics department had been disbanded decades earlier.)” | “I remember a few years ago looking at peer rankings of graduate departments and being delighted to discover that among statistics departments my own alma mater was in the top ten (although my trust in the process was tempered by the knowledge that, despite its lofty ranking, Princeton’s statistics department had been disbanded decades earlier.)” | ||
<div align=right>Howard Wainer in <i>Uneducated Guesses</i>, 2011, p. 141</div> | <div align=right>Howard Wainer in <i>Uneducated Guesses</i>, 2011, p. 141</div> | ||
“As they do on many obscure policy issues, Americans polarize sharply along partisan lines when they learn that President Barack Obama supports a repeal of the 1975 Public Affairs Act. …. There's one striking problem here: The 1975 Public Affairs Act does not exist. …. In a series of surveys that polled national samples about similarly fictitious or otherwise unknown legislation, [pollsters] found 20 to 40 percent of Americans were willing to offer opinions on laws they have never heard of.” | “As they do on many obscure policy issues, Americans polarize sharply along partisan lines when they learn that President Barack Obama supports a repeal of the 1975 Public Affairs Act. …. There's one striking problem here: The 1975 Public Affairs Act does not exist. …. In a series of surveys that polled national samples about similarly fictitious or otherwise unknown legislation, [pollsters] found 20 to 40 percent of Americans were willing to offer opinions on laws they have never heard of.” | ||
<div align=right>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/11/survey-questions-fiction_n_2994363.html?utm_hp_ref=politics “Beware: Survey Questions About Fictional Issues Still Get Answers”], <i>HUFFPOST</i>, April 12, 2013</div> | <div align=right>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/11/survey-questions-fiction_n_2994363.html?utm_hp_ref=politics “Beware: Survey Questions About Fictional Issues Still Get Answers”], <i>HUFFPOST</i>, April 12, 2013</div> | ||
Revision as of 16:19, 14 April 2013
Quotations
“The magic of statistics cannot create information when there is none.”
Submitted by Margaret Cibes
Forsooth
Ignorance is bliss, or is it?
“I remember a few years ago looking at peer rankings of graduate departments and being delighted to discover that among statistics departments my own alma mater was in the top ten (although my trust in the process was tempered by the knowledge that, despite its lofty ranking, Princeton’s statistics department had been disbanded decades earlier.)”
“As they do on many obscure policy issues, Americans polarize sharply along partisan lines when they learn that President Barack Obama supports a repeal of the 1975 Public Affairs Act. …. There's one striking problem here: The 1975 Public Affairs Act does not exist. …. In a series of surveys that polled national samples about similarly fictitious or otherwise unknown legislation, [pollsters] found 20 to 40 percent of Americans were willing to offer opinions on laws they have never heard of.”
Submitted by Margaret Cibes