Looking Behind the Current

Recently several of my long running discussions with internet friends on the web have heated up. These conversations often include lurkers adding pithy comments and a good deal of arguments not supported by anything resembling facts. When citations are given, they often come from specious studies done by pseudo-research institutes often funded by conservative or liberal private funds. Then there are the wildly non-scientific "science" statistics tossed out like just because someone wrote them down that makes them valid.

On that note I would like to point you to an article on: How to read and understand a scientific paper - a guide for the non-scientist.  I don't expect you to actually attempt the process suggested in this paper, though it contains wise, clear and unbiased advice. But simply reading this "How to" article should provide some much needed cautions about using internet data to support your political or social arguments. Ignore the first paragraph of the piece that dips into the 'vaccine controversy,' the remainder of the article is free of social or ideological agendas.

Hmm, let me rephrase that last statement. The article is prejudice in that it rests the entire argument on the foundations of science. If you are one of those who doubts the scientific method and the evidence based findings of science, this article will not dissuade you. And furthermore, what the hell are you doing reading my blog, you vacant-minded neanderthal. My apologies to our extinct cousins.

Seriously, take just a few minutes to consider that access to basic scientific research is available to all of us thanks to the internet. You don't have to rely on anyone else to interpret the data or summarize the findings, you have complete and open access to these studies right at your fingertips. It might take awhile to glean the information through some of the obtuse language, but remember as the article points out; often scientific language uses unfamiliar or dense terminology to obtain the necessary specificity that scientific research requires.

Go to the primary source when you can, don't rely on those with political or social motives who are going to twist and spin the truth to support their position.

A little test for all of us

A few months ago there was a graphic circulating around the web titled - The World As 100 People. Basically it divided the world's population into percentages. For instance - gender. If there were only 100 people on the planet, 50 would be male and 50 would be female. That surprised me just a little but I realized I was thinking first world, where women outnumber men. The rest of the earth's population balances the gender split out.

I jotted down several of the others categories that really surprised me. Let's see how you do. Answers way down below.

A. If the world had only 100 people how many would be over 65 years of age? Hint: don't get caught in the same logic trap I did. The question might be better stated as: What percent of the current world's population is over 65?

B. What if we divide the population into Europeans, Africans, Asians and people from the Americas. Which is the largest grouping and just how big is that group? All answers are between 1 and 100.

C. Chinese, Spanish, English, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese are the 9 most spoken languages on the planet. What percent of the world speaks languages other than these nine?

D. Here's one that really threw me. How many can read and write and conversely how many cannot?

E. What percent of the world have access to the Internet?

A. Only 8% of the world's population is over 65 years of age.

B. Asians account for 60 out of every 100 bodies on the planet. 15 Africans, 14 from the Americas and 11 Europeans.

C. A whopping 62% of people speak languages other than the top 9.

D. 83 out of every 100 persons can read and write. I thought the literacy rate was so much lower.

E. 30% can access the internet, 70% cannot.

Here's the graphic you might have seen used to illustrate the original story.

source information here