“The numbers don’t lie” goes an oft-quoted saying… and that’s true, for the most part. Numbers don’t lie, but what does lie is the people who are reporting the numbers. The recent brouhaha over health care reform in the United States has brought this fact about numbers & statistics into stark relief of late. Most people, when they read a poll, don’t really think about the numbers all that much, or they are too innumerate to really understand what they’re reading – which is how so many are easily manipulated. And oftentimes the polls are self-contradictory.
For example, look at this recent article – which is, refreshingly, a good example of critical thinking in the modern media – concerning the question of polling public opinion on health care reform…
Health care polls leave pols dizzy
Legislators hoping to learn what their constituents think about the issue — and how to vote to keep them happy — face a dizzying deluge of hard-to-reconcile data, some of which suggests that voters are more than a little confused, as well.
What to make of it, for example, when one poll finds that 63 percent think “death panels” are a “distortion” or “scare tactic,” and only 30 percent think the issue is “legitimate,” while another finds that 41 percent believe that people would die because “government panels” would prevent them from getting the treatment they needed?
Or when one survey finds that 55 percent of Americans support the public option, while another says 79 percent favor one — but also notes that only 37 percent people surveyed actually knew what “public option” meant?
And because there is such ambiguity in these polls, those with an agenda can usually cherry-pick whatever data they want to make a case for their particular argument. Even changing the wording of a particular question just slightly can have a huge impact…
The Skeptical Teacher 