Monday, June 20, 2005
 
Fun With Statistics
From the story "Supporters of increasing tax on cigarettes quietly push on", we get this insightful statistical analysis from the Associated Press:
    The "why" goes something like this: Missouri has the third-highest smoking rate in the nation, spends the third-lowest amount on anti-tobacco efforts and charges the third-lowest cigarette tax.

    The correlation is no coincidence.
No wonder polisybodies like statistics. Unlike real science, statistics are just like language--they can say whatever you want, and you can deconstruct the meaning of the numbers-as-text to imbue them with whatever liberation (of citizens' money-as-tax) theory you espouse.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:30 PM
Comments:
"The correlation is no coincidence"

But neither does it show causation.

Idiots.
# posted by Blogger Harvey : Tuesday, June 21, 2005 8:28:00 PM
 


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