Archive for November 20th, 2008

Got your attention? That might be a stretch, but one thing is for certain, figures might not lie, but liars figure (at least according to Mark Twain). The problem is, it’s remarkably easy to take legitimate numbers and spin them to mean whatever you want them to mean. It’s even easier to pose poll questions in such a way as to push the subjects to give answer that you want.  That makes surveys, polls, and questionnaires…well…questionable. Think about it. How many times have you been asked a question, and you gave a less than truthful answer? If you’re like most people, the answer is “a bunch.” Turns out, most people answer survey questions with an eye to what they think the people running the survey want to hear. Others simply don’t care. Some like to attempt to skew the results, just for fun. Then again, some take surveys seriously. Problem is, it’s almost impossible to tell the accurate data from the bad. Oh, sure, you can try making the surveys double-blind, expand your sample to eliminate statistical aberrations, even try and cloak the party who’s commissioned the survey. Those techniques can help – a little – but they cannot overcome the central reason that surveys are inaccurate. 

Everybody lies. Read the rest of this entry »