4.4 Conclusion

By now, it should be clear that qualifiers attached to proportions (and percentages) are critical. Without them, results from studies can be blown out of proportion. It is not wise to completely rely on assertions made by news articles (or other kinds of reports), even from supposedly credible agencies like the Straits Times. As we have seen, social scientists should be comfortable with interpreting data from its source21 in order to evaluate claims that are being made in public discourse today.

  1. This, however, first requires data to be made available for replication purposes.↩︎