This quote from Mark Twain comes to mind:
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Government Assault on the Chinatown Bus Industry Fueled By Bogus Federal Study - Reason Magazine
An influential report by the National Transportation Safety Board used the wrong data and committed "statistical malpractice."
I haven't seen either report yet, but when we bear in mind that Reason is a magazine committed to hard-core Libertarian ideology, its conclusions ought to be carefully scrutinized. After all, such Libertarians fundamentally do not believe in government regulation of anything at all.
ReplyDeleteI agree, you need to look at the source data and with statistics, it's so easy to cherry pick the data.
ReplyDeleteOn scrutinizing, unless I have seen the original data, I go by the ideal of trust, but verify.
Chinatown Bus Sweep Said Based on Faulty Study Defended by NTSB -
ReplyDeleteBloomberg News