The Critical Thinking Blog

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/14/opposite-sex-marriages-increase-ons-divorce-remarriage

The headline suggests that marriages among people over 65 increase by nearly half which is reflected in the statistics shown in the article that between 2009 and 2014, there was a 47% increase in the opposite sex marriage rate of people over 65. On the ONS website, it shows that marriage rates for opposite sex couples marrying in 2014 increased for men and women aged 65 and over (12% and 17% respectively). However, when explaining the figures in absolute terms, the article says “7005 men aged over 65 married a woman in 2014, up from 4704 in 2009” which could contradict the figures shown as it suggests an average of 67% of over 65 men are marrying a woman rather than 47%. The headline was produced by using statistics from the Office for National Statistics which take the whole population into consideration as it is an official board for statistics. Therefore, it could be argued that the headline is misleading as it fails to explain whether the figures shown are for couples aged 65 or over or whether they are presenting data for men over 65 marrying women

Soaring property prices trigger record 14,000 challenges to wills in a year as a rise in divorces and remarriage leads to disputes between ‘modern families’

• The number of challenges rose from 11,735 in 2014 to 14,167 in 2015
• Many now tailor their wills to favour one child ahead of another
• Rising property prices give beneficiaries ‘a larger pot to fight over’

Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4392152/Record-14-000-wills-year-challenged-house-prices-rise.html#ixzz4djoVoNI1 By Chris Gysin For The Daily Mail Published: 23:34, 7 April 2017 | Updated: 01:35, 8 April 2017

CRITIQUE

The headline implies that the increase in property prices is responsible for challenges to wills and linked to an increase in divorce and remarriage. However, using their figures gives an increase of 2432 will challenges in one year – 14,167 subtract 11,735. Which equates to 202 per month. We do not know if these figures are over a full year, or just part of a year. The headline also implies that 14,000 is a whole new number for the year. There is no comparison between the increase in any other years. There is no mention of where the figures come from, no link to any report, no mention of what area they are targeting – who the population are or what age group.

Cause, correlation or coincidence? There is no evidence correlating the increase in property prices with the increase in will challenges – nowhere in the article does it even mention property prices. Therefore, it is likely to be a coincidence – property prices in certain areas generally do increase over time as do divorce rates and will challenges. Since we do not know the target area or have any in depth figures, we cannot make any correlations with the hypothesis thus can conclude that property prices do not cause will challenges or divorce as implied.

The article appears to be written from the perspective of two fairly high profile lawyers (based on viewing their websites), therefore it is biased as to their opinions and records. They would not be representative of the population as a whole. Overall, the article feels more like an advertising campaign, using fear, to try to persuade people in a divorce situation to use a respectable lawyer otherwise they are going to lose money or property. There is mention of children being favoured and/or missing out on what they are entitled to. Two high profile cases are mentioned – the Beatles and the magician, Paul Daniels, whilst these figures may be relevant for a few people, for the vast majority of the public, they are completely unrealistic and irrelevant.

A new headline could read:

“With an increase in will challenges and contest over property, lawyers urge families to use their services to avoid missing out on what is rightfully theirs.”

According to an article on Get West London, a survey carried out by Rightmove has suggested that Hounslow is the second most miserable place to live in Britain. The article says that Hounslow came 129^th out of 130 areas rated in Rightmove’s annual ‘Happy at home index’. The article further states ‘Barking & Dagenham is Britain’s glummest location, according to the survey, in which nearly 25,000 people were asked to rate their home on 12 criteria ranging from decor and space to community and safety’.

Firstly, the article does not specify where the 25,000 people that completed the survey came from and what the sampling method to find them was. The article uses the words ‘miserable’ and ‘glummest’, and both of these words may be subjective and are open to different interpretations. We are also not told what questions were in the survey. This makes us question how ‘most miserable’ and ‘glummest’ were generated from a survey on 12 criteria ranging from décor and space to community and safety. There seems to be no clear correlation between the survey criteria and the claim that Hounslow is the ‘second most miserable place to live’.

Overall, the headline is not appropriate as the sample size does not reflect the whole of Britain. 130 areas is a small sample size considering there are 326 districts in the UK overall. So the survey does not represent the whole of Britain, therefore meaning the article is wrong to claim that Hounslow is the second most miserable place to live in the whole of Britain.

Source:

http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/hounslow-second-most-miserable-place-9801661

A survey was completed by YouGov to investigate how many students suffer with mental health problems. The findings state that one in four of the students asked have mental health problems. This can be deemed as accurate as the results show that 27% of those asked said that they suffered from these issues. However, this may in fact be higher as 16% answered that they would prefer not to say or did not know. The survey asked 1061 students across the UK, which can be a representative sample of all students as there is a low margin of error. Although this survey could be generalised, there is an issue that it is not a consensus and therefore there can be individual differences that could impact the figure. The report refers to percentages of different sexualities, and what percent suffer from mental health problems. The survey may be possible to generalise to the population of university students across the UK, however, it is clear that more straight individuals were asked in comparison to those who are not straight. Around 73% of those questioned were straight, therefore the sample size for those who are not straight is small, meaning that it is hard to claim mental health issues are more prominent in LGBT students. It is also not made clear whether students from all universities were asked, or whether only certain areas were focused on. This can be an issue as the sample may be focused on certain areas, meaning that the headline may not be able to refer to the whole of the United Kingdom. Of those who stated that they suffered from mental health problems, it was found that 77% suffered from depression, and 74% had anxiety related problems. Other mental health problems included eating disorders, behavioural and developmental disorders and learning disabilities. Furthermore, an issue with this survey is that is does not specify whether those who said they suffered from mental health problems were fully diagnosed. Overall, the heading of the report is accurate as all figures are correct, however it is important to note that around 169 people answered that they were unsure or preferred not to say, which could mean that the figure may be distorted from the correct value. The report also does not specify which UK universities were questions, and therefore there may be possible bias in the areas, which could mean that it is difficult to use the figures for the whole of the UK students.

Bibliography

Aronin, S., and Smith, M. (2016). One in Four Students Suffer from Mental Health Problems. YouGov. [online]. (9 August 2016). Available from: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/08/09/quarter-britains-students-are-afflicted-mental-hea/. [Accessed 7 April 2017].

Gurney-Read, J. (2016). One in Four University Students Suffer from Mental Health Problems. [online]. (11 August 2016). Available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/08/11/one-in-four-university-students-suffer-from-mental-health-proble/. [Accessed 7 April 2017].

Blog post:

The other day while talking with my mother, she told me she saw on the news that paedophilia has increased by 200% these past year. When I asked her where did she get that statistic from, she said that she saw it on a news report on a Spanish TV channel she usually watches. I then decided to do some research on the topic and see whether this statistic was true or it was just fake and exaggerated to have a sensationalist report on the news. I couldn’t find much dated to this year, neither last year (2016) by typing on Google search “paedophilia increased 200%”. The only interesting thing that caught my eye was this forum post (the following link) http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1162851/pg1 related to paedophiles under Trump’s protection. After having a read through, one of the few conclusions I have is that maybe paedophilia has increased, but it just isn’t covered by media as much as other issues, hence why sometimes people hear little about it or just becomes an invisible problem for some and this may be due to the latest terrorist attacks. So the attention media puts towards other issues is now directed/has shifted to horrors and sensational news reporting, since terrorist attacks are events that don’t tend to happen very often but most people are afraid of being a victim of terrorism themselves or somebody they know and is close to them.

In the headline of the article, it is stated that “One in Five employers have turned down a candidate because of social media”. The report surveyed different sized organisations, small, medium and large in order to collect their results. The data suggests that 19% of employers have turned down a candidate because of their online activity. Therefore, this statistic has been rounded up to 20% which shows their headline is correct as this equals one in five people. The article further states that large organisations were the most likely to have turned a candidate down with 28% of them doing so. This is compared those who would not check prospective employee’s social media accounts; 20% at large organisations, 27% at medium organisations and 40% at small organisations. These claims correlate with the YouGov Survey Results conducted on a sample of 2058 business decision makers as the statistics presented in the article have not been altered from the survey.

However, the data could be criticised as it fails to state what makes an institution small, medium, or large. Therefore, this leads the reader to determine this information for themselves which could lead to inconsistences when interpreting the article. This is because, for example what one person deems to be a medium organisation may be different from another.

In conclusion, however, the statement made in the headline is correct. Therefore, the headline is not misleading as the statement made is accurate in correlation to the data they have collected in their survey.

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/04/10/disgracebook-one-five-employers-have-turned-down-c/

This is the headline for an article posted on The Guardian website on the 20^th of June 2013. It states “More than a third of all women worldwide – 35.6% – will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, usually from a male partner, according to the first comprehensive study of its kind from the World Health Organisation (WHO).”

It has long been argued that when it comes to statistics of violence within relationships there will always be a dark figure as people are frightened to speak out against their partners for risk of getting hurt more. Also some may be unaware that what they are receiving is perceived as violence, they may be used to the behaviour and now consider it normal. It is usually in cases where the victim receives such harsh physical attacks that they end up in medical care that the abuse is reported.

The research states that they investigated worldwide and in the graph* depicted in the article they name the certain areas. Of course it is impossible for them to of studied all areas of society. There are many places within the continent of Africa who do not disclose what happens to the larger society. There are tribes who are cut off from western society and refuse to allow anyone approach them that it is impossible to receive statistics from these people.

Also the graph shown is highly misleading, they show Africa at the top of the chart with the western continents below it. This is perceiving Africa to be a more violent continent, as it is not part of the western world the media often depicts it as a barbaric and out of date place. Of course the recorded population of Africa is 1.2 billion recorded in 2016 and therefore it will obviously have higher rates of violence within it. In comparison to continents like Europe where its population is 743.1 Billion as recorded in 2015, or America where the recorded population is 325.9 million as recorded in 2017. It is just an obvious perception that the larger the place the higher the rates of something may be.

Although the headline is representative of the data inside it is the data itself that can be called in to question due to the ever looming dark figure when recording sexual and physical violence against women. Also it is the wording within the article that takes away women worldwide as the victim but instead makes women not of the western world seem like the ones in greatest danger.

*The Graph depicting violence against women worldwide.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jun/20/one-in-three-women-suffers-violence

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/police-use-of-tasers-rises-england-and-wales

Travis, A (Thursday 13^th April, 12:36 BST)

Police use of Tasers in England and Wales rises by 9%

Officers used stun guns on 11,294 occasions and fired them 1,755 times, in period when violent crime also rose

This headline is misleading because the first thing read is that the amount of Taser use has risen in the two countries but it doesn’t say the number of interactions they don’t use Tasers on so there is nothing to compare it to. Even though Tasers were used on 11,294 occasions, that is only 9% out of 125,485 occasions, so in comparison it isn’t as large a number as it first seems. Furthermore, the article goes on to specify that while Tasers are used on 9% more occasions, this is used as a threat with officers “aiming and activating the devices without actually firing them” and the number of times they were actually fired has only risen by 2%, a much smaller number than the headline originally states, with “83% of cases of Taser use last year were classed as non-discharge”. The headline implies that more people are being shot with the Tasers but it later says that the large majority of cases did not even have the weapon fired so this headline is extremely misleading. Though the figures were gained from the Home Office, so will be presented as raw figures, the article has presented them in a manipulative way that makes them seem more drastic then they really are.

This headline was taken from the online version of BBC news and was published on May 2016. It highlights how abortion rates within England and Wales have stayed ‘fairly constant’ with only 185,824 abortions in 2015. One of the issues with this headline is the lack of definition of the word ‘fairly’ which is quite an ambiguous word. Moreover, reading further into the article it is revealed that the abortion rate has actually been fluctuating as there is an increase of 0.7% on rates for 2014, but it is still 0.3% lower than those recorded for 2005.

Within the article there were no links to the report where the data was used from however; one can find the data on the Official National statistics (ONS) on abortion rates in England and Wales. It shows that in 2015 the total number of abortions “remains at 185,824, 0.7% higher than in 2014 (184,571) and 0.3% less than in 2005 (186,416)”. The credibility of the data remains intact as ONS is a reputable source of data. The calculation for the percentage rise is correct as the difference between the 2014 figure and 2015 figure is 1,253 which when divided by 184, 571 then multiplied by 100 equals 0.7%, when rounded up. The same method reveals that the 0.3% decrease is also correct.

When reviewing this article, although the data is correct the title is not suitable for the findings as the word ‘fairly’ is a subjective term. A better headline would reveal that

“Although the abortion rate has risen by 0.7% since last year, it is not the highest it has been since 2005”

References

BBC News. (2016). Abortion rates ‘fairly constant’ – BBC News. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36312132 [Accessed 10 Apr. 2017].

ONS (2016). Report on abortion statistics in England and Wales for 2015 – GOV.UK. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/report-on-abortion-statistics-in-england-and-wales-for-2015 [Accessed 10 Apr. 2017].

Evidence #2: YouGov poll

YouGov – one of the best-known polling agencies in the country – have released a report called ‘Personal Injury 2014’, which costs £3850.  You only have the press release available, which starts:

It also showed the following chart:

Source: YouGov press release available at https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/07/30/people-suffering-personal-injuries-less-likely-mak/

Critique

The data was found to be accurate after calculating the percentage of people in the sample group who had faced personal injuries and said they had made a claim and comparing it to the results of 2013. The method used in for producing this headline was a survey commissioned by YouGov Reports among its online panel, drawing a nationally representative sample of 2,212 UK adults aged 18+. This sample was then supplemented by a boost sample of 441 adults who had been involved in a personal injury/clinical negligence claim to generate more in-depth analysis on personal injury claims. This method is appropriate, as YouGov’s online panel members are pre-screened in order for certain criteria to be met. Thus the sample would be regionally proportionate and the age requirement would be met by all participants. The headline is, thus, not misleading as the likelihood of people suffering from personal injuries to claim has declined from 29% to 25%.