In a world surrounded by statistics, tonight we had a hunt across the web and newspapers to find some numbers that might illuminate the world we live in. We used the 12 days of Christmas as a loose way to structure our searching, trying to find statistics relating to the numbers 1-12. A tenuous link to Christmas, but there you go. The discussion highlighted the contentious nature of statistics apart from anything else, and the fact that even the results from so called ‘scientific research’ are open to manipulation (e.g. Ben Goldacre: Battling bad science)
A few random ones…
The world’s richest 1% own 40% of all wealth globally (UN Report 2006)….One in every 10 marriages in South Korea involves a foreign spouse (Observer reported)…One in two new graduates are jobless or under-employed (Yahoo News April 2012)….1 in 4 people will experience mental health problems in any one year (Mind)….one in 5 people are Chinese (geography.about.com)….the unemployment rate in Norway is 4% (Observer reported)…. one in two smokers will die of a tobacco related disease (WHO)….one in seven people on the planet use Facebook each month (management today)…. One in 7 people will buy a real Christmas tree (Independent)
Happy Christmas.
Pub Church - cardiff 