Buy the Numbers

Slide from the State of the City Address (pdf of full slideshow here)

"Statistical tools and methods, like many other technologies, can be employed either for social good or for evil" (the American Statistical Association’s Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice).

How%20to%20Lie%20with%20Statistics.jpg Unfortunately for us, we’ll never know the difference: Darryl Huff’s classic How to Lie with Statistics is, at the moment, unavailable at the San Francisco Public Library.

The probability of this occurrence is… you figure it out.

The fourth slide in our fearless Mayor's State of the City PowerPoint Presentation featured the bold words: "Progress by the Numbers." Earth-shaking statistical analysis of the numbers after the jump.

We know that the statistically-deft Gavin Newsom would never use the numbers for evil, but as responsible citizens, mustn’t we inform ourselves, so as to be able to tell the difference between the two?

Let's look more closely at the much-remarked-upon State of the City Address (which doubles, presumably, as the State of the County Address). By our reckoning, approximately 52.5% of the 95 minutes were spent presenting numbers and statistics, thus proving the old adage that “90% of politics is half statistics” -- assuming that the remaining 10% of politics is three-quarters statistics (this statement has not been evaluated by the FDA).