On Thu, 31 May 2001, W. D. Allen Sr. wrote:
> Only from the education field do we hear the statement that over ninety
> percent of students ranked above the median! The statement was made on
> TV.
(1) I take it that it was the keyword "students" that led you to suppose
that the statement had anything to do with "the education field" (rather
than, say, the field of study the students were pursuing).
(2) The statement appears, however, not to have been made by any agency
of "the education field", but "on TV" -- by which one supposes you mean
broadcast television. That's not education: that's entertainment.
Or, possibly, "news", or the deliberate distortion thereof.
(3) A couple of colleagues have already pointed out how the statement
you so scornfully cite might in fact be true; although whether in fact
any such interpretation can be believed is impossible to tell, in the
absence of any context.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald F. Burrill [EMAIL PROTECTED]
348 Hyde Hall, Plymouth State College, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MSC #29, Plymouth, NH 03264 603-535-2597
184 Nashua Road, Bedford, NH 03110 603-471-7128
=================================================================
Instructions for joining and leaving this list and remarks about
the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES are available at
http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/
=================================================================