According to a study.. Oh I give up

By Neurobonkers On February 27, 2012 · 3 Comments

Update 27/02/2012: The Daily Mail article has now been updated to include a source. The research was apparently done by TGI Fridays, yes the restaurant chain (I asked for a source not a sauce). I managed to get a press release with lots of information about the restaurant’s “rich food and beverage heritage”, their “juicy burgers”, “tender ribs” and “hearty steaks” but no methods or data, their PR firm say I can have a copy of the research when they’ve finished it. Hmmm.

I was just beginning to think that I might get through a day without seeing a horrendous Daily Mail Article when someone sends me this. Don’t bother reading that. This time the Daily Mail have excelled themselves. The normal formula [study finds shock-horror-finding to support misogynistic, bigoted viewpoint] is adhered to. Normally we can expect at least a vague hint at the source, the nationality of the lead researchers or perhaps the country their conference was held in. This time, not even a clue, just “according to a study”.

Seeing as last time I reviewed a Daily Mail science article, the study was completely misreported (no really, the highlighted areas are all false), I’d like to know where the aforementioned study came from.

Without a source article… I give up.

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http://twitter.com/Neuro_Skeptic Neuroskeptic

Heh. I bet TGI Fridays weren’t pleased that the first version of the article didn’t mention them. Because such recycled press releases…sorry, articles… are essentially free advertising. http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/08/93-of-surveys-are-meaningless.html
http://outofthenormmaths.wordpress.com/ outofthenorm

I’ve tried to work out from the percentages, how many men & women they asked. Under some pretty strong caveats, my best guess is about 67 of each.

Here’s my working: http://outofthenormmaths.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/percentages-for-sceptics-part-ii/Also, “a girl gets to know 0.46 of a man” if 13 women are dating a total of 19 men. 19/13=1.4615…
But I’m hoping they actually do realise how averages work, and it’s a joke.

http://neurobonkers.com Neurobonkers

Ha! That’s absolutely outstanding! Well I emailed the PR company and they said it’s “2,000 single people (excluding married, divorced and widowed)”, so I guess that fits in with your algorithm?

I’m still waiting back to find out what questions they asked, apparently there’s a hold-up because it “requires going through the data and pulling them out”… that’s the reply I got today, a full three days after I initially asked for the questions!

They must be positively drowning in data if they don’t even know what questions they asked!

:-S