But that does emphasise the point that people need to have a reasonable grasp of mathematical concepts, otherwise they will swallow that sort of nonsense without realising they are being manipulated. There are plenty of similar statements (apocryphal or not) involving the misunderstanding of averages.
However the statement "Most people have more than the average number of legs" is statistically true if you think about it.
Why BBC Radio 4's You and Yours should be compulsary listening - uncovering the wilful lies poeple spout when massaging figures and statistics to embellish their argument.
This weeks covered Labour's Diane Abbot talking complete bollocks when accusing the Coalition of reducing NHS spending in poor area's and sending the money to posh Surrey and the like, and also how the BBC and other's were caught out with last weeks hoax story on Internet Explorer users being dummer than Firefox, Safari and Chrome users.
agree! I see too many adults (educated professionals too) who cannot gross-up or understand the effects of compounding. These should be taught so people have basic maths skills (or as you rightly say numeracy skills would be a better description).
The sorts of things I am talking about are:- * work out the tip on a bill
* divide a bill between the number of people at the table
* work out VAT
* work out what "a 30%" discount means
* understand that if the mortgage interest goes from 3% to 4% then their interest payments increase by a third (not by 1% as once heard someone say).
That's an easy one, it's Zero £0.00.
Table waiting staff get paid to do a job, you don't see the girl on the till in Asda, the auxuillary nurse in your University Super Hospital or the Burger Boy in Maccy D's drive through expecting extra cash for doing what they are paid for.
You see this a lot with womens groups sadly, when they complain university math departments are too male, they cite that girls do as well on average as males in grade school math, leaving out the fact that males while having the same average, have way more heinously bad performers, and far more top performers than females, and that is what matters when you are producing elite talent.
But in many more cases they just lack common sense or a basic curiosity to check the figures or source. Like the sex trafficking debacle recently where they massively overstated the number of victims, had little to do with math, just folks who take any number thrown at them uncritically and run with it.
They covered stuff like this in last weeks show - when you go looking ofr something, you are often likely to find it - 'Confirmation Bias', as opposed to a correct and representative statistical sample.
They were talking about the media bigging up the death of Amy Winehouse as being a superstar musician being more likely to die @ 27. The '27 Club'. The mortality rate was only 2% higher than Joe Public., slightly higher than a soldier in Afghanistan. Put down to drug, booze, lifestyle etc. rather than the mythical '27 Club'.
The article on the stack of $100 bills being 9,030 miles high covering the US national debt @ £14.3 trillion dollars was fab
Just popped to that site - do you recommend a particular one of the several podcasts on offer there?
I'd go back and listen to them all - they are all pretty good.
From government gaffes, opposition lies, questionable statistics on how many people really are gay put forward by advocacy/lobby groups, to US government debt and mortality rates on the population at large or Amy Winehouse and her top musician peers specifically
I agree with your post. Teaching kids to understand things like APR, interest rates and things like that are hugely important and will have a bigger impact on kids.
I've only just left school and I agree that sort of thing should be taught. I don't have a clue!
Comments
Why BBC Radio 4's You and Yours should be compulsary listening - uncovering the wilful lies poeple spout when massaging figures and statistics to embellish their argument.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/you-and-yours/
This weeks covered Labour's Diane Abbot talking complete bollocks when accusing the Coalition of reducing NHS spending in poor area's and sending the money to posh Surrey and the like, and also how the BBC and other's were caught out with last weeks hoax story on Internet Explorer users being dummer than Firefox, Safari and Chrome users.
That's an easy one, it's Zero £0.00.
Table waiting staff get paid to do a job, you don't see the girl on the till in Asda, the auxuillary nurse in your University Super Hospital or the Burger Boy in Maccy D's drive through expecting extra cash for doing what they are paid for.
Just popped to that site - do you recommend a particular one of the several podcasts on offer there?
They covered stuff like this in last weeks show - when you go looking ofr something, you are often likely to find it - 'Confirmation Bias', as opposed to a correct and representative statistical sample.
They were talking about the media bigging up the death of Amy Winehouse as being a superstar musician being more likely to die @ 27. The '27 Club'. The mortality rate was only 2% higher than Joe Public., slightly higher than a soldier in Afghanistan. Put down to drug, booze, lifestyle etc. rather than the mythical '27 Club'.
The article on the stack of $100 bills being 9,030 miles high covering the US national debt @ £14.3 trillion dollars was fab
I'd go back and listen to them all - they are all pretty good.
From government gaffes, opposition lies, questionable statistics on how many people really are gay put forward by advocacy/lobby groups, to US government debt and mortality rates on the population at large or Amy Winehouse and her top musician peers specifically
Oh they all are good, don't worry about it.
I've only just left school and I agree that sort of thing should be taught. I don't have a clue!