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July 03, 2003
Lying With Statistics, Shame on Drudge!
It really bugs the shit out of me when people use statistics to lie and just assume you're stupid enough to fall for it.
Case in point, this graphic was the splash from Drudge Report this morning. Under it was the headline "HOW HIGH CAN IT GO?"
Glancing at that graph, you'd assume the unemployment rate has increased by about 1100% since February 2001.
But look at the scale of the Y axis. It does not start with 0, it starts with 4.0. And the increments are very small, 0.2%, making small jumps in unemployment look very large. A more accurate representation of the data would look something like this:
Those two graphics look very different but present the same data.
The first one makes the data look like it has increased very rapidly over the past few years. The second shows the same increase, but it does not look like as radical a change.
The Media (tm) does this all the time. Learn to see through this bullshit and draw your own conclusions about what The Media (tm) feeds you.
Posted by Christopher at July 3, 2003 10:41 AM
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