"98% of all statistics are made up"

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AuthorTopic: "98% of all statistics are made up"
Lifecrafter
Member # 59
Profile #0
Let's share statistical jokes...

The more pills people take, the worse their health. Hence, medication is bad for your health.

95% percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread. Bread makes people violent!

The survival rate of water drinkers is 0.
Posts: 950 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00
Apprentice
Member # 3388
Profile #1
Sorry, i don't know any statistical jokes. however, i would like to take this opportunity to vent some of my irritation about statistics.

People tend to refer to the small figures in statistics as 'the exception to the rule'. This is just insane! if there's an exception, you've got no rule, or if there's rules, exceptions are just law-breakers.

whew, that made me feel better..

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Many an ancient lord's last words have been, "You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh."
-Terry Pratchet
----
"Never build a dungeon you wouldn't be happy to spend the night in yourself. The world would be a happier place if more people remembered that."
-Lord Vetinari
Posts: 49 | Registered: Monday, August 25 2003 07:00
Lifecrafter
Member # 87
Profile Homepage #2
90% of all cars are stolen within 30 minutes of being parked.

Therefore if you move your car every 29 minutes there is a 90% probability it won't be stolen.

10 out of 9 statistics are wrong.

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Tip of the Day: #13 Stand clear the closing door.

That's treason.
(THNIK)(Peculiar James, FP productions co, inc)
Posts: 816 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #3
90% of all cars are stolen within 30 minutes of being parked.

That one's not just a joke, it's complete hogwash.
What you probably meant was "90% of all stolen cars are stolen within 30 minutes of being parked."

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"And all should cry, Beware, Beware!
His Flashing eyes, his Floating hair!" S. T. Coleridge
---
"It is as if everyone had lost their sense
Consigned themselves to downfall and decadence
And a wisp it is they have chosen as their beacon." Reinhard Mey.
---
Quote of the Week: "I have a high opinion of myself, which makes up for my total lack of intelligence." Anon.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Shaper
Member # 517
Profile #4
Isn't it interesting how misleading statistics can be? For instance, the 'average wage' at a large company was around £25,000 a year. This sounds reasonable until you discover that the vast majority of the workers earned barely more than the minimum wage, while a small cabal of bosses were paid hundereds of thousands, resulting in such a reasonable-sounding statistic.

'Tests show that X makes doing Y 50% easier!' Of course they do, but how many tests did it take before one got that result?

...there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

-E-

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Let them eat cake!

Polaris Boards: The System is Up. Perennially.
Posts: 2314 | Registered: Tuesday, January 15 2002 08:00
Lifecrafter
Member # 3320
Profile #5
I have been rather curious about how the currency of England works. Can someone give me a site to a chart that compares currency in England to currency in the Untited States?

For instance:

1 pound in England = ????? dollars in America

Bye.

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Mrs. Peacock: "Everything all right?"
Colonel Mustard: "Yep. Two Corpses. Everything's fine."

"Keep your wits about you, the game is afoot!!" - Sherlock Holmes
Posts: 935 | Registered: Friday, August 8 2003 07:00
Agent
Member # 366
Profile #6
I think there are about 1.57 dollars to a pound at the moment.

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I say never be complete. I say stop being perfect. I say let's evolve. Let the chips fall where they may.
Posts: 1277 | Registered: Sunday, December 9 2001 08:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 3073
Profile Homepage #7
What exactly is a pound a pound of?

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"It's cool to be a robot." Scud

"Half human, half robot, all Sicilian." Tony Tastey

"|||| ||| |||| ||| ||| |||||?!? Drywall

"I'm calm.....GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME." Don Vito
Posts: 383 | Registered: Friday, June 6 2003 07:00
...b10010b...
Member # 869
Profile Homepage #8
http://www.xe.com/ucc/

A currency converter that's apparently kept up to date.

And a pound was originally the value of a pound of silver, hence "pounds sterling". I'm pretty sure the currency no longer uses that standard, though.

[ Wednesday, September 03, 2003 13:24: Message edited by: Thuryl ]
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Law Bringer
Member # 335
Profile Homepage #9
Over 90% of all statistics are off by a factor of up to 100.

—Alorael, who also firmly believes that at least 3/4 statistical figures are off by at least 37%.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Infiltrator
Member # 2940
Profile Homepage #10
check out this statistic page. , acording to this my country (Chile) is the 18th country with less murder in the world!! Wich makes me wonder a lot about the veracity of statistics.

What is true however is that we are the second country with most roberies, only passed by Spain...THAT I believe, since my family was robbed twice. Once they stole a pair of old macs from my dads office...snif.

Wow, we are also the second best teen smokers in the world...and I dont smoke!! That makes me special huh.

the third fish catching country, yummy, gotta lova sea food. the fourth in navy personnel...no wonder, two classmated joined the navy.

mmm...we are also the 5th e-goverment in the world, just behind the U.S....do you also pay taxes through the internet?? BTW, Bush aproved the FastTrack Treaty with Chile, you should be getting good fruits and fish anytime now!

[ Wednesday, September 03, 2003 19:37: Message edited by: The_Nazgul ]

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"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying."
Posts: 469 | Registered: Thursday, May 1 2003 07:00
Shaper
Member # 22
Profile #11
I'm fairly sure "sterling" came from a group of German bankers.

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KazeArctica: "Imagine...wangs everywhere...and tentacles. Nothing but wangs and tentacles! And no pants!"
Posts: 2862 | Registered: Tuesday, October 2 2001 07:00
Shaper
Member # 517
Profile #12
Yes, silver is argent, is it not?

-E-

EDIT: I'm wrong. After research, I discover that sterling silver is silver of very high quality/purity. Hooray.

-e-

[ Thursday, September 04, 2003 06:33: Message edited by: Omlette ]

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Let them eat cake!

Polaris Boards: The System is Up. Perennially.
Posts: 2314 | Registered: Tuesday, January 15 2002 08:00
Warrior
Member # 2155
Profile #13
Death has a 100% mortality rate.

----Your statistical maniac, Necris Omega

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Sanity is a relative concept. And like most my relatives, I rarely see it.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." ~ Albert Einstein
Posts: 168 | Registered: Saturday, October 26 2002 07:00
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #14
Life has, too.

Just about everything does, if you look at it in the long run.

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"And all should cry, Beware, Beware!
His Flashing eyes, his Floating hair!" S. T. Coleridge
---
"It is as if everyone had lost their sense
Consigned themselves to downfall and decadence
And a wisp it is they have chosen as their beacon." Reinhard Mey.
---
Quote of the Week: "I have a high opinion of myself, which makes up for my total lack of intelligence." Anon.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
BANNED
Member # 4
Profile Homepage #15
Immortality doesn't.

Unless you're Ezekiel.

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We're all amazed but not amused
By all the things that you said you'd do.
You're much concerned but not involved by
Decisions that are made by you
But we are sick and tired of hearing your song,
Telling us how you are going to change right from wrong,
'Cause if you really want to hear our views,
You haven't done nothin'.

Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00
Warrior
Member # 2870
Profile #16
What is wrong with these statistics is not that the statistics are wrong, but the conclusions are wrong. 35% of you did not know that. Guarenteed (sp?) or your money back.

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All your base are belong to us!!!!
http://people.cornell.edu/pages/slp29/ayb.html
Posts: 138 | Registered: Saturday, April 12 2003 07:00
Warrior
Member # 3417
Profile Homepage #17
In New York City, a man is mugged every 3.5 minutes. Fred Smith is that man (anyone remember the SNL skit? I think it was Bill Murray, or maybe Chevy Chase - they kept trying to interview him only to be constantly interrupted by him getting mugged)

There are three types of falsehoods: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.

Once in graduate school I had an argument with a person that was using two data points on world population to extrapolate an exponential growth pattern. The end result is that they refused to talk to me anymore when I pointed out that the argument was silly.

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This space intentionally left blank.
Posts: 70 | Registered: Monday, September 1 2003 07:00
Master Jeweller
Member # 409
Profile Homepage #18
"You can use statistics to prove everything. 28% of all people know that."
- Homer Simpson

"Statisticians have an important profession in this life. They provide a
reasonable backing for all the arbitrary decisions their superiors want
to make."
- Statistic Funnies
- And people who don't know what arbitrary mean should click here:
http://www.ironycentral.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=000134;p=2

People with large feet are more intelligent than people with small feet.
(which is 'true' if you consider that children, who have smaller feet,
score less than adults on many intelligence-type tests)

If you stockpile enough data, there will eventually appear a
correlation between two items that are in fact not related at all. This is a
basic law of statistics and follows from mathematical chance.
Example: a correlation exists between the difference in length
between your middle finger and the finger next to it, and your sexual
preferences. This does not mean that either is cause for the other.

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Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heilighthum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng getheilt,
Alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Pieter Simoons aka Radiant

Official Crystal Shard and SubTerra webpage
Posts: 798 | Registered: Monday, December 17 2001 08:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 431
Profile #19
Yeah, Nazgul, I guess we're special... at least here in Copiapo, or at least in my school, I'd say 90% of teens smoke...

Crime is going up really fast here, I guess it is because of the Penitentiary Reform... at least in Atacama crime has augmented really, really fast.

On the other hand, I hardly belive in statistics. I don't know, I just belive in the census. I have heard that telephone polls are usually fixed up, so the people can only vote for some alternatives.

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GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY TOMATO!
Posts: 367 | Registered: Sunday, December 23 2001 08:00
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #20
I found a cool quote in some place, but it didn't name any author:

"He uses statistics the way a drunkard uses lampposts, for support, not illumination."
IMAGE(Spiderweb Software Boards 98% of all statistics are made up_files/tongue.gif)

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"And all should cry, Beware, Beware!
His Flashing eyes, his Floating hair!" S. T. Coleridge
---
"It is as if everyone had lost their sense
Consigned themselves to downfall and decadence
And a wisp it is they have chosen as their beacon." Reinhard Mey.
---
Quote of the Week: "I have a high opinion of myself, which makes up for my total lack of intelligence." Anon.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Lifecrafter
Member # 87
Profile Homepage #21
1 out of 4 americans suffer from mental illness.
The other 3 enjoy it!

The average american family has 2.5 children (less now).
This is my half-brother Eric!

"You should do data mining to find out what your customers are thinking... and if you mine the data hard enough you will find messages from God. *wag wag wag*" -Dogbert.

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Tip of the Day: #13 Stand clear the closing door.

That's treason.
(THNIK)(Peculiar James, FP productions co, inc)
Posts: 816 | Registered: Friday, October 5 2001 07:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 3073
Profile Homepage #22
If the entire human population was shrank to 100 people, there would be:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans

52 would be female
48 would be male

70 would be non-white
30 would be white

70 would be non Christian
30 would be Christian

88 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
1 would be bisexual

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States

80 would live in substandard housing

70 would be unable to read

50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 would be near death - 1 would be near birth

1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education

1 would own a computer

Pretty weird, isn't it?

[ Saturday, September 06, 2003 11:05: Message edited by: Xan Kreigor ]

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"It's cool to be a robot." Scud

"Half human, half robot, all Sicilian." Tony Tastey

"|||| ||| |||| ||| ||| |||||?!? Drywall

"I'm calm.....GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME." Don Vito
Posts: 383 | Registered: Friday, June 6 2003 07:00
Warrior
Member # 2978
Profile #23
1 would own a computer

Ok, say there's roughly 6, maybe even 7 billion people in the world, going with the higher number, 1% of that is 70 million. I can't believe that there's not more than twice that number of computers in the world today, what source are you using?

And about the 6 people possessing the big lot of wealth, I'd say one of them would be western european. (There's not 360+ million people in the US, closer to 300 right?)

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Contradictions get me everything I want.
Love is all. Love is Evil.
Posts: 148 | Registered: Tuesday, May 13 2003 07:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 3073
Profile Homepage #24
I got this information from an e-mail from a friend, and it was written by "Anonymous". The U.S. has a population of 291,997,977 and the world population is 6,316,092,735. And mind you, that 70 percent of the population can't read, which means they have very little reason for a computer. Also, much of the population lives in poverty.

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"It's cool to be a robot." Scud

"Half human, half robot, all Sicilian." Tony Tastey

"|||| ||| |||| ||| ||| |||||?!? Drywall

"I'm calm.....GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME." Don Vito
Posts: 383 | Registered: Friday, June 6 2003 07:00

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