Monday, August 31, 2009

Statistics versus anecdotes

When you report on something and you have statistics and anecdotes, which should win? Which should be the basis for your conclusions? If you had data on a large part of the US population and then you talked to your brother-in-law, which would be more important to report?

Check out this NYTimes article about the Exodus from Facebook, and think about how statistics and andecdotes are used. Ouch.

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