Steve Smith wrote at 03/14/2012 12:34 PM: > I'm not sure "Statistics are Lies" is precisely accurate. I think > "Statistics are incomplete" and "Statistics are skewed" come closer but > *even* more to the point, I think, is "Statistics are used to lie".
I can't resist. ;-) The noun "lie" is interesting. It's not like, say, "hammer" ... or "rock" ... well, unless you're a fan of intelligent design, that is. A lie is a thing that one might find lying [ahem] around on the ground. But somehow we can know just by looking at the lie, the purpose to which the lie was put. A lie is more like a hammer than a rock, of course. Those of us with hands (or with the neural structures that allow us to imagine hands) can accurately infer the purpose to which a hammer was put. The set of observers capable of accurately inferring the purpose of a hammer is quite small, but still seems large enough to those of us in the set. It's not so easy with rock. Was it designed to filter water? ... or to execute people who break your laws? -- glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
