Taliban Misreprentation

I have NO political agenda here - I just couldn't resist the really bad reporting
Reported widely today in the press (emphasis added):

Taliban hold sway in 75 per cent of Afghanistan: reports think tank
Tuesday, December 09, 2008

KABUL: Taliban insurgents have a “permanent presence” in almost three-quarters of Afghanistan and pose an increasing threat to the capital Kabul itself, a think tank said Monday.The International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) said in a report that the Taliban had extended its tentacles from its southern power base and established itself across large swathes of the country.“The Taliban now holds a permanent presence in 72 percent of Afghanistan, up from 54 percent
just a year ago,” ICOS said in its report, which was rejected by the Afghan government."

• WOW - Not only did the headline writer add a few percent to the council's number (reporting 75% when the body text says 72%), the council totally misrepresented their findeings. Sometimes the misreprentations are additive. The taliban's "perminent presence" (their quotes - Like they knew it was a fraud) in this case counts 1-taliban in a region as a perminent presence. Not really a controlling interest.

Breaking News - Moose control 50% of the united States! (counted by land area as ICOS did).

Meaningless scoping of the issue is not enlightening. Who would have figured that the Afgan government would be on the right side of the issue?

the World - Cliff's notes edition

We all know Statisctics can be manipulated to fit an agenda, but sometimes it is surprising how many ways this can be done. The thing to always keep in mind is:

Statistics are really just convenient summaries of some reality; like cliff's notes of the world.

Just like a Cliff's notes summary of a book, statistics leave out information for the purpose of ease of understanding. But also like Cliff's notes, they are not to be confused with the real thing. They are a pale imitation of reality - missing most of the information that makes the real world unpredictable and complex. Sit down this weekend and read the Cliff's notes version of your favorite classic novel, and I'm sure you will see how unfulfilling a summary can be.

The Top 10 ways that statistics lie ---
10 - Insufficient sample size - 20 people's opinions are just that, 20 people's opinions. This is not a summary of the world.

9 - Selection Bias - If your sample is not diverse, your answer will not be also. A good way to fudge. How about we call the NRA to see who likes guns?

8 - Correlation IS NOT Causation - Come-on people, the car is in the driveway and it is raining - really, the car didn't do it; I swear. And Really - the rain didn't put the car there, I just didn't drive to work that day.

7- Picking the sample period - Right now it is colder then it has been since noon. Boy that's cold, must be some global climatic deep freeze. Oh yeah, it's cold every night at this time, but it sounded better to compare it to noon. The NYSE is up infinity percent over the last 1000 years. Boo Yeah!

6- Picking the questions - Sometimes a survey picks their questions to get their answers. "When did you stop beating your wife?"

5- Scale - Those pesky graphs can show whatever you like if you mess with the scale.

4- Scope - Meaningless scope can obscure the reality rather than enlighten it. You'd be in the top 1% of incomes if you lived in Bangledesh. Who cares, your pay american rent.

3- Lying/Errors - OK, so sometimes an overzelous reporter downright lies and/or repeats bogus numbers with no basis. Happens all the time. Did you know that spinach is not really that high in iron? A math mistake happened in 1870 and was blindly reported for 67 years before being discovered. Who checks this stuff?

2- Bad math - The mean house price in my neighborhood is $850,000, the median price is $450,000. Math matters.

1- Stupid reporting - Often, REALLY OFTEN, the researches get it right, the reporters just don't read the report and report something stupid. REALLY OFTEN!