Saturday, January 23, 2010

Numb3rs in life

Maths is the language of the universe. All digits are the same regardless whether you are in Tirana, Timur Leste, Timbuktu, Tasmania, or Tenochtitlan. They tell the same stories, uniting facts and figures, giving intrinsic value to things and data.

But like any language, some things get lost in translation. This usually happens, thanks to the spuriousness of the science called statistics where standard deviations may be deviants of the worst degree.

And the next thing we know, shit like subprime mortgage hits the fan. Why? Because the statisticians made the numbers look good.

Where is Charlie Eppes when you need him?

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