I dunno...I still think that without context it's really not helpful information. For example, suppose you took a test and you only scored 60/200 points. You would probably feel pretty crummy about that score, and you'd probably want to know how other people scored as well as a basis of comparison. Because if everyone else only scored 30/200 then it means your score was actually quite good; you scored DOUBLE what everyone else did. See what I mean? Sure it's good for "keeping track", but without some basis of comparison the numbers are nothing more than numbers, and numbers need context in order to have meaning. It's my biggest issue with statistics as a whole, because numbers can be spun to present in a particular light, depending on the message trying to be delivered. Without knowing how many promises OTHER presidents have kept/broken, and what the average ratio of kept to broken promises normally is, there's no real way of knowing if keeping 40 or 50 promises in his first term is good or bad. It also doesn't address how good or bad that is considering it's his first term. They're just numbers.
Don't get me wrong here!! I'm not 100% thrilled with everything Obama has done, and I think he's dropped the ball on MORE than one occasion... It's just that numbers without context are relatively meaningless and it irritates me that things like this exist because it DOESN'T really give you that great of an idea on how he's actually doing.
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Date: 2009-09-14 04:17 pm (UTC)Sure it's good for "keeping track", but without some basis of comparison the numbers are nothing more than numbers, and numbers need context in order to have meaning. It's my biggest issue with statistics as a whole, because numbers can be spun to present in a particular light, depending on the message trying to be delivered. Without knowing how many promises OTHER presidents have kept/broken, and what the average ratio of kept to broken promises normally is, there's no real way of knowing if keeping 40 or 50 promises in his first term is good or bad. It also doesn't address how good or bad that is considering it's his first term. They're just numbers.
Don't get me wrong here!! I'm not 100% thrilled with everything Obama has done, and I think he's dropped the ball on MORE than one occasion... It's just that numbers without context are relatively meaningless and it irritates me that things like this exist because it DOESN'T really give you that great of an idea on how he's actually doing.