I really like this quote:
If you should see a blind man lying in the gutter, kick him. Why should you be kinder than God?
for obvious reasons.
And now a word on statistics:
“Misleading”
And now for a whole slough of words:
Whenever I hear anything–especially in the news–remotely involving statistics, by default I doubt it. And Ben Goldacre illustrates how misleading they are in this post on cocaine use doubling in schools as reported in the NYT and other papers. And I’ll point out somebody’s comment that notes how meaningful stats depend on those surveyed providing truthful information, which isn’t necessarily reliable with kids.
Take that Mike Tice and your 2000 people! Nyah!
Oh yeah? Well, me and my 2,000 people have 4,002 fists. You’d have to play “A Thousand Fists” four times to get even close to matching my power. If you have any remaining curiosity, I recommend John Allen Paulos’ book _A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper_.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/038548254X/103-1204145-6339014?v=glance&n=283155
Oh yeah I’ve heard of that book. Good call. I’ll put that on my “delightfully too distracted for reading list”
I really like that quote, too!