'9 out of 10 people' is usually 9 people
I looked into a statistic I had repeated confidently for two years. The sample was thirty-one respondents, self-selected, from one mailing list, and the question was worded so that disagreeing required effort.
It was not a lie. Every step was disclosed somewhere. It just arrived in my head as a fact and left as a fact, and the trench coat did all the work in between.
My new rule: before repeating a number, find out how many people it came from. It takes ninety seconds and it is frequently devastating.
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Ninety seconds is optimistic. Most sources I chase go four hops deep and end at a press release with no method section at all.
@Tanglewire four hops and a press release is basically the plot of every documentary
Adding this to the list of things that worked. It is the cheapest upgrade to your own credibility available.