{"id":7016,"date":"2015-04-29T10:41:25","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T09:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peakepro.com\/?p=7016"},"modified":"2015-04-29T10:41:25","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T09:41:25","slug":"how-to-lie-with-statistics-and-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/archives\/7016-how-to-lie-with-statistics-and-poetry.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Lie With Statistics (and Poetry)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Tell all the truth, but tell it slant”
\n-Emily Dickinson<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s pretty easy, really. Take a four-thousand-year-old universal human tradition–say, poetry–and use statistical data within a relatively tiny segment–say, the last ten years in America–to extrapolate into sweeping conclusions.<\/p>\n

In a recent article for the Huffington Post<\/a>, I call out this tactic employed by a Washington Post article to once again predict poetry’s imminent extinction (this time with helpful graphs).<\/p>\n

This of course prompted a friendly debate on Twitter with some mathematical philosophers about poetry’s inherent lack of truth due to its freedom from alethic modality (as you would expect).<\/p>\n

Still, I contend that it is easier to lie with statistics than poetry, since one engages statistics expecting objective truth, and often discovers subjective misinterpretation; whereas one enters poetry expecting subjectivity, but often discovers something universal. So much of deception, after all, depends on confidence.<\/p>\n

You can read the article, and leave a comment, on the Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Tell all the truth, but tell it slant” -Emily Dickinson It’s pretty easy, really. Take a four-thousand-year-old universal human tradition–say, poetry–and use statistical data within a relatively tiny segment–say, the last ten years in America–to extrapolate into sweeping conclusions. In a recent article for the Huffington Post, I call out this tactic employed by a …<\/p>\n

How to Lie With Statistics (and Poetry)<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1268,5],"tags":[811],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7016"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertpeake.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}