How to Deceive with Statistics

Nightly News Slight-of-Hand Edition

If your goal is to get people nervous about something specific like Swine Flu, one of the most effective ways to do it is to talk about how scientists have been attempting to identify how many people have been affected by it, then start quoting some statistics about how many people have been affected by any and all diseases:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Now, even if the statistics are actually reporting about those suffering from flu-like symptoms, they're still palming the actual swine flu card and playing something different. Boo, NBC Nightly News. Boo.

In other news, sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I've been trying to help out with my daughter more. I've also been developing my dissertation and doing some curriculum development for a couple distance learning courses. So that hasn't left much time for blogging. The curriculum development is almost done now, so I'm hoping to be back to a more regular schedule soon. I've got a few more posts scheduled for the next couple of weeks, so hopefully that will last until I can put things up more regularly.