A friend recently told me that 75 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot. I, in response, employing many valuable statistics of my own, called her a big stupid liar. She then changed her answer to 72 percent, and we both agreed that this was much more believable.
If any sweeping generalization can be drawn from this story, it is that by calling one's friend a big stupid liar, one can get her to lower whatever answer she gives by three percentage points. Does this far-reaching conclusion, however, really apply in all situations across the board? Allow us to examine matters more fully, by looking at a completely factual dialogue:
You: "Hey, friend, what is the chance that I will be eaten by a manatee?"
Friend: "94 percent, I think."
You: "You're a big stupid liar!"
Friend: "Okay, 91 percent."
You: "And why are we situated across this board again?"
Friend: "Who knows. Look out, here comes a manatee!"
As we can see, the sweeping generalization we made holds true, although the "across the board" part clearly took both people by surprise. The manatee should have come as no surprise, as all good dialogues traditionally end like this. Remember Plato's classic Republic, in which Socrates is all set to give his account of Justice in the ideal city, right before he is eaten by a manatee? Who can forget this? (Hint: a lot of people.)
Nevertheless, our conclusion holds water indeed, and now we should be able to answer such highly technical question involving statistics as the following:
"Billy calls Jenny a big stupid liar. Jenny responds by saying "47 percent". What was Jenny's original answer?
Employing the Insult-Always-Lowers-Her-Answer-By-Three-Percentage-Points Rule, most American high-school students have guessed that Jenny's original answer was "somewhere in the area of 47 percent, roughly." But they were wrong. In this case, Jenny's original answer was "No, Billy, I don't think it would be a good idea to march on into the principal's office wearing only a map of Kenya." And so Billy called her a liar. And we assume that he went through with it, because Billy has not been heard from since. He was 31 at the time.
In any event, in the olden days "47 percent" would have been viewed as a decent guess, at least in Indiana or Maine. Kids today, however, they'll give answers ranging anywhere from "North Dakota" all the way to an astounding "South Carolina." And this is before we even ask them anything! I wonder if they are playing too many video games.
Why do I bring up such hard-hitting topics as this? Why do I always shed light on the things in the closet that your mother told you "never, ever to shed light on, no matter what?" And then you asked her what was in the closet, and then she swung a broom at you? Who knows what was in that closet. The point is, an astounding 100 percent of people heavily rely on statistics and generalizations to help run their lives and determine their actions. But is this a good thing?
Statistics are 81 percent of everywhere. They are 29 percent unavoidable. Hey, cut 46 percent of that out! Whew. So it makes sense that we pay attention to them, if for no other reason than they will not leave us alone. (This is the same logic we employ when dealing with Kevin Costner.)
For instance, if the weatherperson says that there is a 95 percent chance that it will rain, what do we do? Naturally, we throw him in a ditch for bringing us such bad weather. And we would not have known to do this without having heard the facts.
Sometimes statistics lead us to make undue generalizations. When we hear that 55 percent of a certain people acts in one way or another, we tend to think, "Shoot, that's way more than half," because we have limited math skills, and thus we figure that all of those people must act that way. But we are forgetting that everyone is different.
The questions that face us now are many. Can we slow down our mental processes, and responsibly let reason guide our thinking and decision-making? Will such a fast-paced informationalist culture ever be able to train itself to look through empty, inflated figures in an attempt to see actual truths? Should we also throw Kevin Costner into a ditch? My first reaction is to refer such dilemmas to my friend, who not only told me that 72 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot, but once also informed me that 150 percent of college students believe in the accuracy of statistical reports. No way, I thought initially. But looking back, there was a 28 percent chance that she was telling the truth.
