Lies, damn lies and statistics….

 Let’s start with the quote. I looked it up and was told by Wikipedia: “The full quote — “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” — has been attributed to Mark Twain, who himself attributed it to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who might never have said it in the first place”.

 It’s a great starting point for a plea for the checking of facts when writing and speaking. I owe my obsession for this to two people, my lecturer on Research Methods at King's College London and Tim Harford's wonderful “More or Less” podcast.

 Listen to his latest one on the claim that Russia spends 40% of it’s budget on defence. A terrifying number. But the first question is what does “budget” mean and what else is in the 40%?  Is this comparing apples to apples or to some other random vegetable?

Our first reaction is to compare it to US or EU spending. I won’t go through the detail, but it turns out the “budget” in question includes security, prisons and border control but excludes the odd minor item such as education and health spending. That 40% is nothing like as frightening as you think (though they still spend more than the west).

 The other claim I saw on LinkedIn recently was the old “95% of communication in the workplace is non-verbal”. Firstly common sense will tell you that no workplace is that silent, (though there are days when it would be good and we could all just wave at each other) and secondly you can find research that goes from 40% to 90% as being non-verbal. 

 We have to get a lot more obsessed about the accuracy of diagnosis before starting to think about remedies.  You wouldn’t want your doctor making up his facts.

 Why? Because facts matter. The more people create inaccurate diagnoses the less good the remedies. Look at the politicians today spouting “facts” to support their policies. That’s how war, persecution and misery begin. 

 Always apply common sense. If it doesn’t pass that test the “facts” are almost certainly wrong. Dig some more.

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