Thog's Science Masterclass #23

[realthog]

Thanks to Wonkette for posting a screengrab of a wonderful pi-chart prepared by Faux News to show the different levels of support enjoyed by the supposed GOP frontrunners for 2012.

Apparently 60% of Americans back Romney, 63% back Huckabee, and a stonking 70% back Palin.

Wow!

That'll be 193% of the population voting Republican in 2012, then.

Comments

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

But that's possible, innit, assuming you're using those Republican rigged voting machines.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Ha!

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, "Opinions Dynamic" doesn't seem to exist either...

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Arithmetic has a known left-wing bias. Teachers of arithmetic need to let Jesus into their lives.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Ah, the USA. Even the %%%s are bigger.

[ogre-san.livejournal.com]

Fox leaked a memo where they threaten to fire people for screwing up like that. We all believe that'll happen, don't we?

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Even the %%%s are bigger.

One of the comments on the Wonkette posting read:

In Texas everything is bigger!!2!!

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, all the tech staff they're planning to fire for showing a McCain-Palin mass campaign rally and billing it as the queue for a Palin book signing. Even the broadcasting pros who're conservative are blenching at that one, on the grounds that (apparently) it's technically well-nigh impossible to make that particular goof . . . and the FAUX crowd have now done it twice in a matter of weeks.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

They might. Since posting I've been told the original poll was good . . . and that what it was reporting on was percentages of registered Repugs who regarded each of the three as a viable candidate; in that context it's perfectly sensible to have a total over 100%, because of course many people, especially those undergoing treatment, will regard two or all three as viable candidates. Unfortunately, FAUX seemingly "interpreted" these results a little before presenting them to their audience.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

As explained in my reply to the comment just before yours, there's apparently nothing wrong with the pollers' work; it seems rather that (a) the folx at FAUX are mathematically deficient or (b) they think (perhaps rightly) that their audience is so thick as not to notice the falsehood.

Or, I suppose, (c): both.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see what happened. The actual company is Opinion Dynamics, which Fox credited as Opinions Dynamic, hence ensuring that a google search would turn up nothing except confused people on democracy underground wondering what the hell Fox's source was.

The pie chart formation is still epic fail.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

The pie chart formation is still epic fail.

Oh, mightily so.

It's kind of symptomatic of the FAUX News inadequacy to master even the most rudimentary aspects of the Scientific Method (like, Make Sure You Get Your Data Right) that they can't even think it important to make sure they render the source's name correctly. Presumably they don't think it's important. Or maybe they're like all those Ann Coulter fans who're wildly impressed by the number of her footnotes -- that provesshe's academically rigorous, see? -- without ever considering it might be relevant whether or not all those footnotes contain utmost bullshit.

(Some brave soul did sit down with one of her books and discovered something like 9 out of 10 -- I kid you not -- of her footnoted sources stated the opposite of what she was claiming they stated. This did nothing to dissuade her devotees from the claim that her footnotes proved her accuracy.)

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

LOL. I stay as far away from Coulter as possible, so I hadn't heard of the footnotes argument.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Yup. I'd say you'd got it right.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Right after Sarah Palin becomes a virgin.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Or Hannity's inadvertently showing video of a teabagger rally in September as video of a teabagger rally in November in order to visually inflate the attendance at the latter.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Right after Sarah Palin becomes a virgin.

There you go, persecuting that poor innocent woman again.

[melindadansky.livejournal.com]

Teachers of arithmetic need to let Jesus into their lives.

And science is a tool of the devil, put here to challenge our faith.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[realthog.livejournal.com]

As Rush Bumlaugh might say, I have the statistics right here in front of me so it must be a fact.