It's how you ask the question that matters

[andrewducker]

The New York Times took a poll.  They asked half the people whether they thought that gay men and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the US army.  60% said yes.  They asked the other half whether they thought that homosexuals should be allowed to serve openly in the US army.  44% said yes.

One can only assume that people are made of crazy.  And stupid.

From

Comments

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

You don't know the quotation or you disagree with it?

[andrewducker]

I know of several similar ones, so I could work out the rest :->

And yes, I disagree :->

[andrewducker]

Which is _yes_ you can twist statistics, because so many people don't understand them, so they can't tell when you're fucking with them, but they aren't intrinsically meaningless.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

If you don't trust statistics, you should, I imagine, avoid all modern medicine that isn't intuitively obvious.

Got a headache, a rash, an aversion to light and a neck you can't bend without pain? Sticking a needle in your spine hardly seems intuitive. Sure, the statistics say you might well have meningitis, but they're meaningless...