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“People who use Internet Explorer have lower IQs than people who use Chrome or Firefox.
- Another chocolate and weight-loss style hoax. The opportunity to feel superior to ‘dumb’ IE users was just too much for some…
“Bankers rated as sexier than footballers
- The Daily Mail misses again (via Bad PR)
“More than half of British parents oppose sex education for primary school children
- Want to get something in the papers? Do a rubbish survey (via Ministry of Truth
“Cancer rate in young people up 40% in 16 years
- Rise in number of cancers due to more children (not more cancers) and earlier detection (via More or Less)
“Women spend around £70,000 on their makeup and cosmetics over a lifetime
- Sexist stereotypes from a Groupon sales pitch for ‘face yoga’
“Children don’t play outside anymore
- according to a press release from Savlon and Play England
“Young people could afford a flat if they stopped eating so many take-aways
- according to some estate-agents (via Vice UK)
“71% of 16- and 17-year-olds voted ‘yes’ in the Scottish Referendum
- Based on a sample size of 14 (via FullFact
“Half of GPs would refuse the swine flu vaccine
- Based on a survey of 15 doctors
“The coolest , most boring , proudest , and toughest cities in America.
- More league tables with overlapping margins of error
“20% of Americans have stolen from self-checkouts
- Based on a sample of thrifty Voucher Codes Pro customers
“80% of murders occur during arguments, rather than during other crimes
- Only if you assume that almost all murders that do not occur during the commission of other crimes are due to arguments (via Snopes )
“Over 70% of US population growth results from immigration
- Only if you define ‘immigration’ as including births to immigrant mothers (via Snopes )
“More people were deported under Obama than under any other previous president
- Because the definition of ‘deportation’ changed (via Snopes )
“A third of British schoolchildren at risk of hunger during the school holidays
- Only if you define ‘at risk of hunger’ as being in a family where the parents claim benefits or earn less than 60% as much as the average household (via More or Less)
“Skyrocketing rates of sex offences in British schools
- Depends on what you count as a ‘sex offence’ (via Vice UK)
“80% of US police officers say that background checks will have no effect on crime
- “if you can’t prove what you want to prove, demonstrate something else and pretend they are the same thing” (via Slate )
“There were 290 school shootings between 2013 and early 2018
- This is not the same as saying there have been 290 Sandy Hooks, Newtowns, or Parklands ( via USA Today )
“British MPs tried to look at porn at work more than 24,000 times over the span of a few months
- Only if you count ‘looking at porn’ as ‘attempting to access any site blocked by parliament’s IT system’, and ‘MPs’ as anyone using parliament’s WiFi
“What the average person spends on engagement rings , dating , online shopping , take-out , Valentine’s Day , and gambling
- The mean doesn’t mean what you think it means
“People take an average of six photos before choosing a selfie
- We all know an outlier on this one…
“Foreign-born population in the US at historic high
- Not if you look at proportions rather than raw counts (via PolitiFact )
“63,000 Americans have been killed by illegal immigrants since 9/11
- Only if you engage in some very dubious maths (via the Washington Post )
“Smoking weed increases the risk of stroke by more than a quarter
- But what is the baseline risk?
“Taking painkillers like ibuprofen may raise the risk of heart attack by 100%
- So I’m definitely going to have a heart attack?
“Eating processed foods increases the risk of depression
- Correlation is not causation…
“McDonald’s dominates the global fast food market
- A classic version of the area vs. length problem in bar charts subject to too much graphic design (via eagereyes.org )
“A Fox News graph proving Obama’s terrible record on border enforcement
- Exaggerating differences by shrinking the scale (among other things – via Media Matters )
“Gun deaths in Florida over the last three decades
- You’re reading it upside down (via Buzzfeed )
“Which incredible Canadian woman should be featured on the $20 bill?
- I love this one, because the designers have taken the unconventional approach of targeting their graphic at an alien race with a completely different visual system to our own. One which is able to effortlessly compare the area of 20 different wedges the width of a human hair, and can also distinguish between five identical shades of pink
Some great roundups of nonsense graphs:
11 Reasons Infographics are Poison and Should Never be Used on the Internet Again – Business Insider
March Chart Madness – eagereyes.org
The 27 Worst Charts of All Time – Business Insider
Down the Rabbit Hole of the Pentagon Graphics Machine – Wall Stats
“There is an epidemic of Lesbian domestic violence
- Rates are actually similar as for heterosexual couples (via The Tab )
“PM announces £14 million investment to help turn around the lives of 25,000 struggling teens through a national mentoring campaign
- That’s £112 per teen per year
“Britain’s bill for disability benefits has soared from £2 billion in today’s money after WW2 to £37 billion a year now
- A lot of other things have changed since WW2, and is £37 billion a big number?
“More than half of young people are reconsidering their choice to go to university due to high tuition fees
- Survey apparently conducted by the phone company giffgaff, who now have a money advice section to promote. No methodological details given anywhere on giffgaff’s site.
“More than a third of graduates regret going to university because of debt
- A survey by the insurance company Aviva, who once again provide no details on what they actually did.
“Kids these days all want to be tech moguls or YouTube stars
- Another survey by tech job search website Dice. But who were their sample?
The following excellent fact-checking sites cover a lot of statistical stories:
