[Vision2020] Statistics
Donovan Arnold
donovanarnold@hotmail.com
Fri, 16 May 2003 02:52:10 -0700
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<P>Good point John, however,</P>
<P>Most people don't even know what statistics are, and don't even know what it means anyway. If you don't understand what methods used are, the margin or error, the level of significance, the non response rate, if it was voluntary or involuntary survey, if the alpha level was .5 .1. or .01., the wording of the questions. For all I know they used a Tcalc for a Zcalc test. Wouldn't that mess up the results, is easy to do too. Even if they did understand this, you would still need to evaluate other statistical data because statistics are wrong 1% to10% of the time. Which means, statistically, 1-10 out of a hundred statistics are not correct. :) Furthermore, people that do statistically analysis on their own business or organizations usually know what makes them sound good so they arrange the test to be designed to give them these results. Many of the large companies that were busted for fraud regarding profits did this. They would over calculate costs, and under calculate!
revenue of sales. Then when it came to report the value of the shares, you under calculate the costs and over calculate revenue of sales. This provided higher earnings then predicted and boom, people buy your stock you sell, and your rich :). So backed or not backed, statistics don't mean a thing to people that understand them and are not given all the finite details of how the calculations were made. But your right, they sound damned good don't they! :) By the way, the statistics I used, which I miss read because of the wording of the statistic(stated this in my other email)was from the book called "Where We Stand" Written by Michael Wolf 1992. 10,000 are murdered from guns, not 5,000. Thanks!</P>
<P>Btw, I was not calling </P></DIV>
<P>Donovan Arnold<BR><BR></P>
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<DIV></DIV>>From: "John Moss" <JOHNMOSS@MOSCOW.COM>
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<DIV></DIV>>To: <VISION2020@MOSCOW.COM>
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<DIV></DIV>>Subject: [Vision2020] Statistics
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<DIV></DIV>>Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 22:50:51 -0700
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<DIV></DIV>>Citizens and mathematicians,
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<DIV></DIV>>In a recent e-mail to Mr. Arnold, Mr. Nieuwsma asked Mr. Arnold to back up his statement that "5,000 people are killed every year in this country by guns, and most of them were accidents by people that were careless and irresponsible." This is a fair request to make.
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<DIV></DIV>>Over the last week, we have seen a plethera of appeals to statistics to prove a point. Mr. Courtney states that MSD's student-to-teacher ratio is 15.22, and then Mr. Kaag states that "very few teachers in this district are teaching 15.22 students." And Mr. Arnold presents us a statistic about careless deaths caused by guns, and then Mr. Nieuwsma presents us statisics of guns used in self-defense.
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<DIV></DIV>>If possible, when appealing to a statistic on this forum, could you please try to state where the statistic came from?
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<DIV></DIV>>As my earlier quip noted, anyone can make up statistics that sound good. And, yes, other statistics are valid. So when using statisics, please do your best to validate them.
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<DIV></DIV>>Thank you all,
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<DIV></DIV>>John Moss
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