How to Tell When Statistics Are Bullshit
VICE: The word “statistics” has a bad reputation. They are often seen as the most boring part of a news story. Why should we care about them?
Tim: Statistics are a very important way of understanding the world. There are sixty to sixty-five million people in the UK. There are seven billion people in the world. You can’t get a picture of what’s happening purely by anecdote. You need to see what the numbers actually say—whether you’re trying to understand the doctors strike, inequality, health stories, the financial crisis, environmental change, anything really. Statistics will tell you things you can’t learn any other way. One of the things that we do on More or Less is to ask quite simple questions that other people could ask but don’t.
▻http://www.vice.com/read/statistics-more-or-less-tim-harford