Quote:
Originally posted by hobbes@16 July 2003 - 03:43
In regard to this thread as a whole, statistics can be used to prove anything, if you hide the pertinent variables well enough. That is why I find a topic, which really relates to human nature, discussed in terms of statistics to be a lost cause. No way it can be solved this way, as both sides have plenty of wonderful numbers to throw around.
hobbes, you raise very good points. But you'll have to tear from my cold rigor-mortisized hands my faith in proper statistics. While i agree that stats can be marshalled in almost any direction, a critical thinker with a decent level of numeracy can see through the crap 99 times out of 100. I keep hearing this summer how "stats can prove anything", and it bothers me that people seem to think there's no room for absolutism, that its all one big relativistic slippery slope. its just not true for the majority of issues out there, and if you look carefully enough, I would say you'll find differences in ideology, not perception of reality.