Numbers are tools that are used for measuring and are essential to use in our reasoning; however, they may mislead us so we have to be cautious when using numbers. There are various kinds of misleading claims with numbers: apples and oranges, two times zero is still zero, percentage of what?, there’s no way they could know the numbers. I’m going to first talk about apples and oranges which is “a numerical comparison where it doesn’t make sense to compare the items.” (Epstein, 2006) Here is an example from the textbook:
There were twice as many rapes as murders in our town.
This claim is pretty vague because it seems like it’s trying to tell us something important but we are not able to figure out what it is.
We can also make comparisons using increases and decreases. That is known as two times zero is zero. It’s a numerical comparison that “makes something look impressive but the base of the comparison is unstated:
Enrollment at SJSU is up 50% this year
We don’t know what the enrollment was last year so this claim is misleading.
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I agree, numbers can be misleading and we should be cautious when given information with numbers. It is not always correct. Apples and oranges claims are very vague, but it happens more often in life than we expect it to. Especially when we are debating within a group or with another person. I also like your example, short and precise. It is true that the method of two times zero is zero is not very effective since it is a form of exaggeration without any base to it. It is like an open ended claim with no solid proof. That i do agree.
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