What we read in newspaper reports or online articles is often only part of the story (other relevant figures are sometimes omitted) or are not completely accurate reports of the findings (such as ambiguity about the wording of questions actually asked). It is therefore important to look for the original source of the statistics.
Statistics can be really useful. For those of us who like to wrestle with cultural issues, they can be a great way of getting a gauge for what’s going on around us. But as well as being useful, statistics can also be dangerous; they are easy to misunderstand and easy to misapply. So here are a few lessons I have learnt to apply when I’m looking at and using statistics.
Look to the Sources
Most uses of statistics are not neutral. First, the form of the study itself can be biased (e.g. in the specific questions asked and the way the research is conducted). Second, journalists and writers can make careful choices to pick the figures which support their point or achieve their aim. What we read in newspaper reports or online articles is often only part of the story (other relevant figures are sometimes omitted) or are not completely accurate reports of the findings (such as ambiguity about the wording of questions actually asked). It is therefore important to look for the original source of the statistics. Even if an article doesn’t cite its sources, they are usually not too hard to find after a bit of searching.
For example, I was looking for stats on polyamory in the UK. I quickly found this article which claims that nearly one fifth of Brits are polyamorous. Later in the article, we are told that ‘Northern Ireland is home to the largest number of people in polyamorous relationships across all regions that were surveyed.’ These statistics surprised me, so I dug a bit further. When I looked at the source of the statistics I found that the survey actually asked, ‘Do you identify as polyamorous?’ This says nothing about whether the respondents are actually in a polyamorous relationship. I then spotted that the survey defined polyamorous as ‘being capable of having more than one romantic relationship’. So, the survey is not actually even about those who would commonly take this as an identity marker, despite how the question makes it sound, but is actually identifying those who think, perhaps hypothetically speaking, that they could live in a polyamorous relationship. So, to say that one fifth of the UK are polyamorous or to speak of people in polyamorous relationships on the basis of this data is rather misleading.
As a preacher, it would be easy to see this article and use the stats to decry the crumbling of traditional, Christian ethics in our nation, yet a little bit of digging reveals that the situation is probably far less serious. It’s important to look at the sources.
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