Ranks or … whatever
The last Good & Bad post already dealt with using ranks and certain related problems, but the thing Udo pointed me to is really of extraordinary absurdity.
The Daily Mail has a feature about the most popular names:
The problem is already explained in the footnote such that I don’t need to comment any further – who would ever consider publishing statistics like this?
Even better is the list of the most powerful people in Forbes:
According to Forbes, the list is created along four dimensions:
- “First, we asked if a person has influence over a lot of people?”
- “Second, we checked to see if they have significant financial resources relative to their peers”
- “Then we determined if they were powerful in multiple spheres”
- “Finally, we insisted that they actively wield their power”
Now, just find a way to measure these dimensions – which is quite subjective for at least 3. and 4., but already hard for 2. . Then define some weights for the four dimensions, and finally make an (arbitrary) selection of candidates: almost anything goes!
PS: If we do not include variant spellings for ‘Mohammed’ the name would end up on rank 16 …
