I’m certainly no math major. Or math student. Or math tutor. Sorry, Shelley.
A lot of people here seem to be respectably good at math, though. That’s probably you.
I can at least read, however, and once long ago I read a review of a book called “How To Lie With Statistics.”
It was a good summary. The book seemed like it would be jam-packed with numbers, so I didn’t buy it. But now I know that the three things in the title are all different, but the media will always — ALWAYS — pick the one that bolsters their case, and then disingenuously use the word “the average” in their article, purposely to confuse people.
I hate that as an English major!
And you should be offended at that even more than I am, if you’re a STEM major.
Oh, you probably already are offended, I just didn’t hear you because I was thinking things about Shelley.
.
Another one is percentages. I know they also play games with “an X percent increase” versus “X percent of” something, because math people recognize the difference, but non-math people go into a coma.
To us, “You’ll get a 110% increase from your investment” sounds exactly like “You’ll get 110% of your investment. 110%!”
That’s why NFL players and English majors go broke.
.
Thank God I went to a school that taught me there was a difference between “interest” and “compound interest,” or I would be broke.
