The most common way to mislead with data is to cite correct numbers that don’t quite mean what they appear to say because we aren’t told the full story. The numbers are not made up, so the fact that the information is a bit incomplete may be an innocent oversight. Here are some examples. You decide how innocent they are.
188
EXAMPLE 1 Snow! Snow! Snow!
Crested Butte attracts skiers by advertising that it has the highest average snowfall of any ski town in Colorado. That’s true. But skiers want snow on the ski slopes, not in the town—and many other Colorado resorts get more snow on the slopes.
EXAMPLE 2 Yet more snow
News reports of snowstorms say things like “A winter storm spread snow across the area, causing 28 minor traffic accidents.” Eric Meyer, a reporter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, says he often called the sheriff to gather such numbers. One day, he decided to ask the sheriff how many minor accidents are typical in good weather: about 48, said the sheriff. Perhaps, says Meyer, the news should say, “Today’s winter storm prevented 20 minor traffic accidents.”
EXAMPLE 3 We attract really good students
Colleges know that many prospective students look at popular guidebooks to decide where to apply for admission. The guidebooks print information supplied by the colleges themselves. Surely no college would simply lie about, say, the average SAT score of its entering students or admission rates. But we do want our scores to look good and admission standards to appear high. What would happen if SAT scores were optional when applying for admission? Students with low scores will tend to not include them as part of their application so that average scores increase. In addition, the number of applicants increases, admittance rates decrease, and a college appears more selective.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges adopted an SAT-optional policy for fall 2006, and their reported average SAT scores jumped 20 points. At the same time, national average SAT scores declined.
The point of these examples is that numbers have a context. If you don’t know the context, the lonely, isolated, naked number doesn’t tell you much.