On print
at how the believabilty of nonsense can be enhanced by the form in which it's presented.  Tell a story to someone. He may or may not believe it. Have the same story printed, and show it to him. He still may or may not believe it. But he'll have substantially more faith in its credibility than before. Then offer him the same story in printed statistical form. He'll not only believe it, he may even resort to violence if necessary to defend it. 

Now why is this so? I don't know. But I'll take a stab at it. 

Three reasons: 

    Because it's in print, most people immediately assume that it was written by an expert. But an expert is frequently just a guy from out of town. 

    Because the art of marketing has been raised to new heights, form has become much more important than substance. But if what people put into attractive packages is nonsense, all that could ever come out of those package would still be nonsense. 

    Words are common to everyone. But not statistics. Therefore, most people don't know that statistics have no more to do with the real world than do voodoo chants. 

As Wendell Johnson might have put it: There's no necessary relationship between the truth of words and the manner in which they're expressed. Wisdom can be scrawled on the back of an old laundry slip. It doesn't have to be printed in many colors on heavy slick paper to be valid. Indeed, someone may have trained his writing skills for forty years and still use it to express sheer nonsense. 

Think about it. 
Your comments are welcome
The End
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