This image appeared on line without attribution. It’s been reposted so many times, it’s tough to say, but it’s probably from a college. One would imagine there’s a second set of eyes reviewing such things. As time goes on, we’ll start to categorize the nature of these errors. Indeed 20 is 1/3 of 60, but the full pie chart is 80 (million). We’ll file this under fractions.
From RationalWiki –
Innumeracy is a term used to refer to a growing trend in the inability of people to understand numbers, statistics, and probabilities. The first use of “numeracy” as an analogue to literacy was in a 1959 report by Geoffrey Baron Crowther[1] and the derivation “innumeracy” was coined by Douglas Hofstadter[2] and popularized by the book of the same title by John Allen Paulos.
This site is an ongoing project, for the purpose of gathering examples of innumeracy and to start a dialog discussing how we can find ways to bring numeracy to the population. Please note, we are not associated with either Douglas Hofstadter, nor John Paulos. I am a fan of both gentlemen, but do not know them personally.
More important, this site was inspired by the encouragement of members at Mathematics Educators, a site within the Stack Exchange community. Many of the examples will come from the discussion there titled Examples of Innumeracy. I hope to build a membership of readers who will offer their own examples from their own experience.