How To Lie With Statistics - Real World Example
When I was in college, I was forced to take a number of statistics classes towards my degree. I’ve always been quite interested in the numbers behind the madness but also disconcerted with the way that they are often misapplied.
My professors at the time were all quite adamant about the power of statistics. Of course, they also cautioned us as to the perils of having those statistics used against you. For essentially any case, you can use the same set of numbers to prove just about anything - even the thing you think you are disproving.
Many years later when I formed Metricals and was dealing with statistics on a daily basis, the truth was no more apparent. I had found a great book, “How to Lie With Statistics” for my partners to get a quick primer on what the “business” end was like.
Today I came across a great example of the problem with statistics. Seems the folks have done their survey of bloggers once again and are presenting the results. Here’s a blurb that quotes their research:
BlogAds' second annual survey of blog readers showed the blog audience getting a bit older, a little richer a tad more female. Most interestingly, the survey showed that the blog audience contains a very disproportionate number of influentials, that minority that drives the opinions of the majority. The audience is almost twice as likely to subscribe to Adbusters than to AdAge, but it isn't as monomaniacally liberal as some people would paint it.[…]
The recent fad of podcasting appears to be much overblown, with this very early adopter audience indicating almost no one actually listens to the audio readings of commentary. Three percent said they listened to one podcast per week. Two percent said they listened to a couple. The people indicating they listened to more than that were two few to make a blip on the graph.
Is that a surprise to anyone? Podcasting’s been on the block something like 7 months and both the creation and consumption processes are more elaborate/complicated. So here’s the flip side of the missive:
"In just 7 short months, the Podcasting movement has taken hold and is already starting to gain traction, even culling interest from the legions of bloggers-turned-audiophiles. As technology and tools come online that simplify and streamline the process of creating podcasts, it's no doubt there will be tremendous growth. Looking back to the age old battle between paper and radio, we can surely expect a more entrenched dogfight in the months and years to come."
But what the heck, I’m biased ;)