Monday, March 27, 2006

Quote(s) of the day

"If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France


Whenever you hear someone defend their beliefs/opinions by quoting polls, make sure to question the validity of it.

When I first read the above quote, another classic came to mind:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Benjamin Disraeli


One of the most useless statistics is the presidential approval rating poll. The Democrats like to rattle off his approval numbers as if they mean the American public has turned liberal overnight. They are going to be really disappointed when they learn that half of those disapproval numbers come from conservatives.

But that is just one example of how statistics don't paint the whole picture sometimes.

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