Week 8 - 1 of 3

In chapter 13, I found two times zero is still zero to be useful and interesting. This is when someone gives a numerical comparison that makes something look impressive but the base of the comparison is not stated. An example of this would be: Jill and Doug are talking about cats and dogs. Doug wants a dog but Jill wants a cat. Jill tells Doug, "cats have a 32% longer life expectancy than dogs". If this is true, Doug doesn't know it 100%. Jill does not state where she got this percentage from. She may have gotten it from Cosmo or from the discovery channel. Another example of two times zero is still zero is: Jackie protests that washing your hair every day will make it 50% stronger in just two weeks. Where did she get this percentage from? Maybe it has strengthen her hair or maybe not. Again maybe she got this information from Seventeen magazine or from a hair stylist. Either way, without some sort of source her argument is not a good one and certainly can be misleading. Examples like these show that when percentages are used for the sake of an argument, they can make matter worse if they are not used correctly or sited properly.