Statistics and surveys, where for art thou?

[Jiggle Counter]

Whenever there's a debate, a spokesperson usually brings up statistics to back up his arguement.

I often wonder how these stats are generated.

"9 out of 10 people of this country are saying blah-blah-blah"

See, when I'm connected to that survey, and yet have had NO say in it, I wonder why it's even allowed to be used in such a case.

There are of course those stats where the evidence is computer generated, such as using government data to analyse unemployment rates and such, but even those aren't entirely used correctly.

"There's a 6% unemployment rate"

"Okay six percent. Let's say that I'm a casual worker, who works 3 hours a day. Am I counted as employed?"

"Yes"

"Even though I have hardly any hours and spend most of my time not at work?"

"Yes"

"So then, what's the unemployment rate if we only counted full-time hours, say, 8 hours or more as employed?"

"Well that's a lot bigger than 6%"

"Are non-citizens with work visas counted in this survey?"

"Yes"


So yeah, what are your thoughts?
In the end, I've never found statistics to be 100% accurate, so what's the point?

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, let's say you don't do any stat for anything. We know statistics are a pain in the butt, but someone's putting in the effort so we have something that approaches accurate information. (It would be more-so if people actually did their studies right, which many do not in order to flub the results or out of laziness, but I digress...)

The problem is that with no stats whatsoever, you're reduces to guesswork. Actually, worse than that. Uneducated guesswork. Maybe even Wild Mass-Guessing, a trope! Not good. Instead of any usable information, you're reduced to alot of rough guesses in everything you need tallied ever...or alot of "I don't know", which isn't good enough to run an anything.

So, it has its part. To do away with it would be to remove an important aspect of trying to figure out everything in life, the universe, and everything.[footnote]42![/footnote] If we were to do that, where would man's quest for knowledge be? Significantly diminished in capability, I would say.