SOCI 210 Chapter Notes - Chapter Best 1: Official Statistics, Cherry Picking, Numeracy
Document Summary
Large numbers/stats are used to convince that there are big issues, whereas small stats are used to convince that issues are handled. Governments/law enforcement tend to use the latter, where action groups use the former. Political arithmetic: studies that attempted to calculate population size and life expectancy; those who carried out quantitative studies became statists, and later such evidence referred to as statistics. Emerged from 17th c. europe - england and france. Growing population = a symptom of a healthy state. Early 19th c. - social order was threatened due to larger cities, industrialization of economies, and political revolutions in america and france. Census and information was used to guide social policy, track numbers of crimes and criminals, records of medical patients, etc. Numbers offered a precision to prove one"s ideas; an authoritative way to describe social problems . The issue of cherry-picking data became widespread. Social problems = products of human action.