Statistics and you

It’s difficult to think of an opening sentence for a blog entry. That one took me two weeks. Admittedly I’ve been rather distracted by the increase in cleavage that the summer so blessedly brings, but the point remains. I obsess over this because the opening line sets the tone for the rest of the article. Some lines can be rather pretentious such as “I’ve noticed recently that…” which perhaps hints at a raised sense of intellectual observation, meaning “I notice things because I’m more intelligent than you”. This is entirely based upon my own opinion of course, which you should probably ignore entirely because I also think that South Park is an ingenious commentary on individual perspective of cultural issues.

Isn’t it amazing how much crap I can type using big words? Studies show that extremely umbratile people find agastopia very ostrobogulous. Speaking of studies and a love for kidneys, recent studies have shown that when people start a sentence with “Studies have shown…” then 90% of people will believe it without question. One study in particular that I found quite interesting is that men who watch a lot of porn are generally more optimistic. Fuck, I just noticed what a beautiful day it is outside. Anyways, the reason I think that could be true is because pornography is filled with fantastically wishful thinking situations. Whether you are a pizza delivery guy, plumber, real estate agent or even a patient in a hospital, you CAN get laid! Every situation that you can possibly dream up has the potential to end with a myriad of ziraleet lesbians.

Some statistics however make no sense to me. Did you know that between the years 2000 and 2009, the highest grossing film in the UK was Mamma Mia? Not Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Pirates of the Caribbean, no, Mamma fucking Mia. And this from a nation who gave us Top Gear, Sherlock Holmes, Lucy Pinder, Stephen Fry, Rowan Atkinson, Bill Bailey, Ricky Gervaise and the ever beautiful Faith Nelson (to name a few). And as a man of science I find that numbers never lie, but in this case I call bullshit. You can argue that it’s a good movie, but it’s not that good.

Almost 40% of Americans believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old. For that, they deserve a president like Romney, but Obama is the hero they need. See what I did there? That was a quote from Batman. I’m so witty! Moving on, 75% of murder victims knew their killer. Good, I want Justin Bieber to know who I am before I swing the axe. 25% of adults believe that online romances are not classified as cheating. 100% of those 25% are men. Each year, 13 people are killed by vending machines falling on them. Apparently it’s necessary that people be warned of the dangers of shaking giant unstable machines. That’s Darwinism at work. 57 % of women would rather go on a shopping spree than have sex. That’s because they suck at sex. No pun intended.

Statistics also brought us “laughing increases lifespan”, “masturbation decreases stress” and “sleeping increases intelligence”. If these were all true, I’d be an optimistic, stress less, intelligent man who will live forever. The point is that statistics are all fine and well for predicting outcomes and calculating insurance costs, but they are seldom applicable to you as an individual. They are like horoscopes: sometimes you go “oh yeah that’s totally me” but other times they are just way off the mark.

Source: www.businesscartoons.co.uk