Perhaps the phrase ‘homeless count’ causes people to assume that the purpose – and therefore design – of the homeless count is to count all the homeless and it is that erroneous assumption that leads to the utterance of utter nonsense such as:
“Earlier this year, a homeless count found a dramatic increase in homelessness across the region from three years ago, including a 79 per cent increase in Abbotsford.
The Shorter – 1 of 2
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” Mark Twain
Twain attributed the quote to British politician Disraeli but researchers have concluded that the phrase originally appeared in 1895 in an article by Leonard H. Courtney. Ironically Mark Twain is credited with saying that “it isn’t what we don’t know that causes problems but what we know for sure – that ain’t so”.
The fault lies not with the science of statistics but with what we know about statistics that ain’t so. .
