Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Undetermined in Iraq
I'm a statistics geek, working for a survey organization, so when Salam Pax posted a link to this survey of Iraqi people about the situation in their country, I was very excited.
It's a very, very interesting read. There's lots of good info in there, much conforming to what I would have expected, some contrary. As always, however, I want more information. I want to see the responses broken down by ethnicity. I want to see them broken down by region. I want to know what the actual numbers were: the source is pretty good (BBC), but I'd be much happier if I knew I was looking at a survey of 10,000 as opposed to 2,000. Or, a survey of 2,000 in a smaller area. All this information is key to drawing useful conclusions from the survey data. Percentages are nice, but you have to know much, much more.
It's a very, very interesting read. There's lots of good info in there, much conforming to what I would have expected, some contrary. As always, however, I want more information. I want to see the responses broken down by ethnicity. I want to see them broken down by region. I want to know what the actual numbers were: the source is pretty good (BBC), but I'd be much happier if I knew I was looking at a survey of 10,000 as opposed to 2,000. Or, a survey of 2,000 in a smaller area. All this information is key to drawing useful conclusions from the survey data. Percentages are nice, but you have to know much, much more.
