On the burning of books ...

Thanks T, I rest my case

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: thellama73 wrote: I don't care about the literacy thing. I just used it as an example. Although your claim that 14% of Americans are illiterate is absurd and no amount of sources you produce will convince me otherwise. I have lived in the U.S. my whole life and never encountered a person who cannot read. Even homeless people can read.   So you make a satement to reinforce your position and you don't care for it?  Then why do you say it?

Why do you keep misinterpreting my point? The point I was trying to make is that the fact that most of the world exhibits a quality does not, in itself, make that quality desirable. I chose literacy off the top of my head, but it could have been anything. Most of the world's population is poorer than the average US citizen. That does not mean that poverty is desirable. I am not saying "the rest of the world is wrong because they are poor." I am saying that the fact that they are numerous does not make their situation desirable. How can I make this any clearer?

When reading that, I thought "That's not a paradox, it's just math." So I looked at the Wiki article. They use the word apparent paradox which is accurate, but the more interesting thing is the example of where the logical error manifests. It is just bad math, and not taking into account proportionality, but the examples were nice.

Equality 7-2521 wrote:   I told him to google's Simpson's Paradox for a good example of the trouble that occurs.   To take an absurd example, but one that illustrates the point of what I'm saying:   Say the US has an illiteracy rate of 50%. The US consists of 2 people. So we have that the ratio of illiterate to literate is (1/2).   Brazil has an illiteracy rate of about 66% and has 3 people, so we have (2/3). Peru, iLR of 75%, 4 people, (3/4) Europe has iLR of 80%, 20 people, (16/20)   So it looks like US really is less than the rest of the world in terms of its literates going along like this. But India has a literacy rate of 45%. No big deal right, the US is still much less literate than the rest of the world. But India has 10000 people, for a ratio of (4500/10000).   So the US has an illiteracy rate of 50%.   The rest of the world here has an illiteracy rate of (2+3+16+4500)/(3+4+20+10000)= 4521/10027 = 45% which is lower than the US.   I'll say again, for an even more counterintuitive result that occurs from reckless rate comparing google Simpson's Paradox. When I go over it in class most people don't believe me even after I clearly show them it's true.   This is why we should really use natural frequencies when doing statistical reasoning instead of rates.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - September 15 2010 at 14:24

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Ivan what are you talking about??   I provided an absurd example. I wasn't making any statement about real illiteracy.   Further, you can't argue with anything I did. I distorted nothing. What you were doing was distortion. Please this is ridiculous. You're acting like a child. I'm not here to argue basic facts of arithmetic.

Now, about the CIA factbook:

In other words, they only care about those who formally read and this is insufficient as they admit, because:they don't mention functional illiteracy, people that can read simple words, maybe write their names, but can't read a newspaper or even fill a job application, they are ILLITERATES.

Functional illiteracy is imprecisely defined, with different criteria from nation to nation, and study to study .However, a useful distinction can be made between pure illiteracy and functional illiteracy, a. purely illiterate persons cannot read or write in any capacity, for all practical purposes. In contrast, functionally illiterate persons can read and possibly write simple sentences with a limited vocabulary, but cannot read or write well enough to deal with the everyday requirements of life in their own society. For example, an illiterate person may not understand the written words cat or dog, may not recognize the letters of the alphabet, and may be unable to write their own name. In contrast, a functionally illiterate person may well understand these words and more, but cannot read well enough to understand the things they must read in order to get by in their daily life. A functionally illiterate person might be incapable of reading and comprehending job advertisements, past-due notices, newspaper articles, banking paperwork, complex signs and posters, and so on.

This persons are even bellow the 5 grades BPSA chart (5=Fluid literate and 1= virtually illiterate), they are for all effects illiterate, they can't function.

Statistics released by the U.S. Education Department this week show that some 32 million U.S. adults lack basic prose literacy skill. That means they can't read a newspaper or the instruction on a bottle of pills. http://www.livescience.com/culture/090110-illiterate-adults.html

Negoba gave a good example, 2 - 3 person out of his 20 (average) patients per week, need assistance to fill their names in a form, this persons sadly are illiterate, but according to the CIA fact book, they are literate

But CIA factbook also ignores that a great percentage of students who are considered literate, are bellow the basic level in reading, also virtually illiterate,

The federal government's 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that 26.3 percent of high school seniors scored below basic in reading skills. In a finer analysis of that data,

But is obvious they comnsider every school graduate as literate, despite: 

The United States Department of Education estimates that functional illiteracy, incompetence in such basic functions as reading, writing, and mathematics, plagues 24 million Americans. Thirteen percent of American seventeen-year-olds are illiterate, according to a recent issue of Time; the estimate for minority youth is an astonishing forty percent. Every year, at least a million of these functional illiterates graduate from America's high schools, the proud owners of meaningless diplomas.

This is frightening, and if we are fighting for freedom to burn books instead of obligation to read books, we are in terrible problem.

Iván

Lol the great Ivan has overturned the basic laws of arithmetic and statistical reasoning. All Hail!!!

Notice that I never said the word functionally illiterate? Notice that when you mentioned functional illiteracy I said that we were not talking about functional illiteracy?

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Lol the great Ivan has overturned the basic laws of arithmetic and statistical reasoning. All Hail!!!   I'm not even addressing the issue of literacy. I'm just telling you how you would have to show that the US has a higher illiteracry rate than the rest of the world.   Can someone else chime in here? I don't even understand his objection.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - September 15 2010 at 16:04

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:   I know, you just proved a series of statistical operations work, nothing more.   We know that you can make statistics about everything using different methods and reach oppopsite conclusions, but you said clearly in your first post that the comparison had to be made in  number of illiterate comparing the total of USA illiterates against the total illiterates of the world to know if USA has (as Llama said)  a smaller RATE of illiterates than the MOST of the world.   And I say this proves nothing, we all know that in numbers and maybe even in percentage, USA has a smaller number of illiterates  than the whole world...But I insist that this means nothing if we don't work country by country.   And no, you don't understand my objection because you only try to prove your statistic system works.