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Discussion » Statements » Rosie's Corner » D'ya take things at face value or are you always looking beneath the obvious to see if there is an "underlying current/meaning"?

D'ya take things at face value or are you always looking beneath the obvious to see if there is an "underlying current/meaning"?

Some folks see things that are not there at all and completely miss those things that are. What would account for that? Do you always assume you understand where people are coming from and react to that rather than to what is right in front of you?

Posted - February 17, 2019

Responses


  • 3680
    Depends...

    May there be a hidden or deeper meaning? If so what?

    I must be the type advertisers and political/ social/ environmental campaigners do not like.

    I will read slogan-style advertisements etc as they written, not as they want me to see it. For example, when British Gas used "It just got better", my reactions were, "Better than what?" and "I hope that illiterate nonsense is not reflected in BG's technical and administrative expertise". 

    When a campaign or a newspaper report glibly quotes percentages, I become mistrustful immediately, and ask if the author genuinely understand the subject or basic statistics.


    Consider this example, deliberately invented and far-fetched:

       "Appalling 50% rise in Synchronised Crochet fatalities! Something must be done."

    What? Clearly a desperately dangerous sport! Ban it! Or at least licence and regulate it out of existence! As long as it's not my own sport, of course.

    However, whilst every fatality is obviously a tragedy no-one wants to occur, that news report or the anti-synchronised-crochet brigade has given a very misleading impression by failing to tell us the numbers. Only the percentages. Nor does it say there may be 10 000 active synchronised-crocheters in the land, and the sport might be growing; but that headline holds true whether 200 were strangled by wool last year, and 300 this; or only 2 and now 3. 

    That headline also hides something else: its writers do not understand hazard and risk. Or they do, but don't want readers to understand them because that would show the anti-crochet case is basically weak, promoted by people who know nothing of the sport. This shows the difference:

    The headline tells us wool being moved around in a great rush, could strangle you if you drop a stich or something. However, that is the hazard, and has not changed. The risk is the variable: 200 then 300 deaths show a high risk, 2 or 3 show it is very low; and it has to be seen against the numbers of participants and of training events, competitions and purely informal synchronised-crocheting.


    I listen to a weekly BBC Radio Four programme called More Or Less, and it is an eye-opener. Each week it considers some examples of statistics reported in the News, some on very serious matters. It asks professional statisticians and other researchers to examine the news reports and the information originators, and they find all too often, these forms of distortion:
      
        - The "media" have reported faithfully but the source itself is of very poor quality, such as a low-grade survey of a just a few hundred people by an advertising agency.

        - The source is unimpeachable, but the Press and campaigners have unfairly given percentages that may be accurate quotes, but without the qualifying ifs and buts, or (as in my fictitious example) the real numbers involved.

       -  Or of course, both the source and the Press quoting it, are misusing statistics to push a particular campaign.
      February 17, 2019 4:22 AM MST
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  • 113301
    Very phunnee hunnee bunnee. I had no idea that synchronized  crocheters existed let alone that they were embroiled in a huge CONTROVERSY!  Well by now I guess you know I'm like you Durdle. I don't care  what the source is. Gibberish is gibberish and nonsense can never morph into common sense and I shall always  be able to ask questions based solely on the nonsense people spout based on things they know nothing about but  believe they do because some highly paid talking head tells them it is true. Balderdash! HOGWASH! The whole may sound profoundly important but if you look at each piece and if they are nonsensical how can the whole possibly be sensical? But folks are too dam* LAZY to question or challenge or think  or investigate or probe or  wonder. They want someone else to do it for them. Which is why we in the US of A are in the predicament we are in. We have a hugely nonsensical irrational prez whom millions adore. They think TRUTH AND GOODNESS only exists within him and everyone else who disagrees is fake phony LIBERAL! SIGH. It is what we now have to endure. I'm sure there is a reason for it. I just haven't figgered it out yet. When the source is crap whatever emanates from it is crap too. Lousy ingredients make for a lousy dish. And so on and so on and so on! Thank you for a very entertaining and thoughtful reply Durdle. Those who SHOULD read it won't. Those who DO READ it are...well..you are preaching to the choir.  Thanks for doing that though. The truth is out there. Whether "they" avail themselves of it or not it is out there for the taking! :) This post was edited by RosieG at February 19, 2019 5:45 AM MST
      February 17, 2019 5:52 AM MST
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  • 14795
    Both really.....and it does depend on who or were the information is coming from.....:( 
      February 17, 2019 5:20 AM MST
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  • 113301
    So there are sources you trust implicitly then D? That's good and probably rare indeed!  Thank you for your reply! :)
      February 17, 2019 5:56 AM MST
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  • 14795
    When I hear sir David Attenborough speak ,I listen intensely and believe every word he says...There is not one single politician ,police ,local governmen official or legal so called professional that I bother taking notice of...
      February 17, 2019 9:17 AM MST
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