How to Defend Yourself From Statistical Lies: Part 4
A beautiful example of a journalist lying with statistics, fresh out of Twitter Hell.
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A writer for several publications, including the Washington Post, tweeted the following:
This implication of racism — and many of the comments even used the word genocide — is based entirely on the percentage. It is a beautiful example of lying with statistics. The federal government has slated 5 convicts for execution, of whom 1 is Native. 1 is indeed 20% of 5, but all this proves is that 5 is quite a small number! It is no way provides evidence for racism or prejudice. The post on lying with percentages goes into more detail about how this sort of dishonesty is accomplished.
