SOCI201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Million Man March, Ornithology, Methamphetamine

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCI201
• Professor: Best Joel

Document Summary

Numbers: sampled 2 families, 1 attracted birds to house, 17 bird deaths, 1 did not, 7 bird deaths, assumptions, 80 million birds killed by window collisions, pet cats kill a billion cats a year. Numbers seem real, like rocks: facts vs. opinion, facts- something than can be proved off a concrete evidence, opinion- cannot be proved, kids learn that if there is a number than it is a fact, false statement. Look at numbers like jewels: statistics are shaped by human effort, they are socially produced. People produce statistics: crime report, fill out a crime form. Main point: you have to ask how the numbers were generated and who is producing them. People make mistakes: ex: harry potter books sales per minute, ex: news pie chart not adding up to 100% Red- terms we need to be able to define. Green- main points you need to understand: graphs can be misleading, graph representation, ex: crystal meth.