Getting numbers wrong

Steve:

Think about this. The New York Times, in a prominent location – a headline! – used a number that was off by a factor of one thousand. One thousand. Utterly, colossally, absurdly incorrect.

How could that happen? Is their research department using a flawed methodology? Did they fall victim to a misinformation campaign? Did someone accidentally post a headline from way back in early 2020? Were they hacked?

Of course not. Obviously, it’s just a typo. No big deal. But the fact that a factor-of-1000 error is no big deal, is a big deal. It undermines the very idea that numbers mean anything. It rubs our nose in the fact that an incorrect number looks exactly like a correct number. In this case, the number is so wildly incorrect as to reveal itself on casual inspection. But most mistakes aren’t so obvious; and even this “obvious” mistake made it to the front page.

Imagine you’re in line at a restaurant buffet, and you see an employee drop a piece of meat. They pick it up from the floor, brush off the dirt, and plop it into the serving platter. Obviously you’re not going to eat it. Are you going to carefully choose a different piece of meat? Or, having seen their standard of hygiene, are you going to leave that restaurant and never come back? You wouldn’t put that food into your mouth; and you just saw a mainstream news source do the metaphorical equivalent of serving meat that had been dropped on the floor. Don’t put these facts into your mind.