A Field Guide To Lies: Critical Thinking In The Information Age - Plot & Excerpts
It seems that they represent facts given to us by nature and it’s just a matter of finding them. But it’s important to remember that people gather statistics. People choose what to count, how to go about counting, which of the resulting numbers they will share with us, and which words they will use to describe and interpret those numbers. Statistics are not facts. They are interpretations. And your interpretation may be just as good as, or better than, that of the person reporting them to you.Sometimes, the numbers are simply wrong, and it’s often easiest to start out by conducting some quick plausibility checks. After that, even if the numbers pass plausibility, three kinds of errors can lead you to believe things that aren’t so: how the numbers were collected, how they were interpreted, and how they were presented graphically.In your head or on the back of an envelope you can quickly determine whether a claim is plausible (most of the time). Don’t just accept a claim at face value; work through it a bit.When conducting plausibility checks, we don’t care about the exact numbers.
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