This week the Wall Street Journal’s Numbers Guy (free) explores how one unattributed factoid has found its way not only into several reports over the last 15 years, but is also now part of popular culture (it’s in the second section). See if you’ve heard it:
"A celebrated study some years ago indicated the only common denominator among National Merit Award semifinalists was that they all came from families that always sat down to dinner together."
There’s got to be a name for these stats that ought to be right, or could be right, even if they aren’t.
Here’s another one I’ve heard:
Half the Internet’s traffic runs through Northern Virginia. On its face, that seems ridiculous, until you consider that this is an old stat (I’ve heard it for years) and that AOL, UUNet, MCI and DOD are all in NOVA. So that’s possible, isn’t it?
As the government generates statistics by the truckload, there have got to be tons of plausible, but unverifiable stats attributed to the feds. What ones have you heard?
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