nick venedi

Friday 28 May 2010

Heart disease and brushing teeth..

Well apparently there is 70% risk of being under threat from heart disease if you do not brush your teeth twice a week and although I do follow this ritual I am amazed how they managed to be so accurate with their prediction. I would imagine that 68.3% would be a much more on the spot figure on this one? I am bothering with this today because it reminds me from my many years working as an accountant how you can make figures say what you want them to say and how you can interpret statistics. I am not disputing that the research was done on this and the project was conducted in the proper way but find it astonishing how they can refer to such a precise figure? You could, for example, ask 10 of your friends who would no doubt be a sample of random souls spread all over the city, a question and their answers could support or reject a theory. So if 10 were asked how much they liked the Eurovision song contest and 3 of them said they hated it you could accurately state that 30% don't like it and 70 % do... get the picture? Now go brush your teeth.

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