Comments for Innumeracy

Comment on Welcome to Innumeracy.net by Anon

Anon — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 17:11:30 +0000

I found this example of innumeracy in the wild.

Article title: TIL 31% of Americans polled in October 1964 “disapproved” of the Civil Rights Act. Another 10% polled as “Don’t know.”

Innumerate comment:

58% approval means either significant numbers of black people disagreed with civil rights (which obviously isn’t the case) or less than 50% of whites supported it.

Reason it’s innumeracy: White people were about 88% of the US population in 1964. So even if an unlikely 100% of the non-whites were in favor of the Civil Rights Act, it still means that at a minimum, 52% of whites were in favor of the Act.

See https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/qa418e/til_31_of_americans_polled_in_october_1964/hh3lwu3/

Comment on Don’t ignore scale by You don't know me!

You don't know me! — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 16:24:28 +0000

Switch “zoom in” and “zoom out”. ilspatialacy? Spatial illiteracy.

Comment on 4 times less? by Joel Reyes Noche

Joel Reyes Noche — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 13:11:19 +0000

You can use up to four times *more* (+400%), that is, five times as much. To say “four times less” (-400%) doesn’t make much sense in this context.

Comment on Cutting a board by admin

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 18:05:36 +0000

Thanks Joel! I’ve edited to provide attribution and mention the member who put the question up.

Comment on Cutting a board by Joel Reyes Noche

Joel Reyes Noche — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 12:31:00 +0000

You probably saw the image from Mathematics Stack Exchange, where the question about it (http://math.stackexchange.com/q/379927/18398) is currently the most highly voted (668 votes).

Comment on Bad Pie Chart by admin

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 10:32:21 +0000

In reply to Joel Reyes Noche. Yes, and I have one in mind, an example from finance. Will post it in a few days. The site is still "in progress", next, I need to add a menubar, and a tab for readers to submit examples. Thanks for visiting.

Comment on Bad Pie Chart by Joel Reyes Noche

Joel Reyes Noche — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 01:22:42 +0000

Another category you can add is *graphs*, as I am sure you will later have a lot of examples showing errors in graphing. (I think a post can belong in more than one category.)