Here's a real shot at loving numbers
You can do any kind of trick with numbers.
To borrow that fantastic statement from Mark Twain and stolen by Harry Truman...
“There are lies.
“There are damn lies.
“And there are statistics.”
That’s all true enough, as some Realtor might prove when citing the rising value of homes close to the one you’re looking to buy. Or when your new boss throws out the percentage of former employees who have started at your same crappy salary — yet moved on to amazing jobs.
Heck, our current commander-in-chief once announced with great authority that 95 percent of Mexicans entering the U.S. were “rapists” and “bad hombres” — a dubious claim, as the man himself knew very well, and like most off-the-cuff percentages...
Impossible to prove.
Or disprove.
BUT WE all know that numbers also can be fun — and if accurate, some are doggone useful.
Look, I know your phone, tablet and computer inboxes are already too full, with tons of junk arriving every hour. And still, I have to introduce you to a terrific free email service that you might find simply wonderful.
It comes from the incredibly accurate FiveThirtyEight, that gang of geniuses founded by statistics geek Nate Silver.
In addition to all of FiveThirtyEight’s other terrific analyses and trendy information, it’s worth noting that Silver was the lone national pundit who continually suggested — when the polls screamed otherwise — that Hillary Clinton might win the popular vote, but not the presidency, because of numbers he had crunched from several supposedly blue Rust Belt states.
Bingo!
OK, so now FiveThirtyEight has debuted something cool for all of us. It’s called: “Significant Digits.”
For the price of absolutely nothing, you can receive an email each day that’s digestible in about three minutes.
FiveThirtyEight calls these gems “a daily digest of numbers tucked inside the news.”
I love ‘em.
HERE ARE a few of the significant digits from Day One of my new favorite service — along with FiveThirtyEight’s source for the stats.
One to two minutes:
A new study published in the Journal of Industrial Economics found that U.S. airline mergers have not had a major impact on flights’ on-time performance. (Futurity)
13.7 gigawatts:
India has cancelled 13.7 gigawatts worth of new coal projects in the past month due to the plummeting price of solar energy. The energy market in India is volatile — just a few years ago, coal was in vogue. (India Times)
49 percent:
Percentage of people who have refinanced their home in the first quarter of the year and cashed out in the process. That’s the highest rate in the post-recession economy, up from 12 percent in mid-2012. In the run-up to the recession, that figure was often over 80 percent. (The Wall Street Journal)
281st place:
Web traffic measurement is more art than science, but it’s clear that alt-right site Breitbart has taken a pretty big hit since President Trump was elected. Breitbart was riding high ahead of the inauguration — the 29th-most trafficked site on the web according to web-monitor Alexa — but it’s now down to 281st place. (Vanity Fair)
1,100:
Number of lobbyists working in some capacity for the pharmaceutical industry. The pharma and health products business upped its lobbying spending by 14 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared to last year, in part because both parties seem keen to slow down drug price increases. (The New York Times)
THAT LAST item makes me a bit ill. And I’m going to avoid buying any meds for help.
Sheesh!
Despite sharing the occasional depressing number — more than a thousand weasels peddling rip-offs? — I’m guessing FiveThirtyEight has a winner with “Significant Digits.”
Go ahead, find the website (fivethirtyeight.com) and sign up for some truly slick stats.
Somewhere among all those numbers, you’ll likely find something meaningful.
And you can always win some bar bets.
I think even Mark Twain would approve.
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Steve Cameron is a special assignment reporter for The Press. Reach Steve at: scameron@cdapress.com.