H
hankroberts
Guest
Bear with me while I tell a story of a set of events that occurred a few years ago. The first war in the Middle East was being launched and there were some people quite upset about it. An anti-war protest was planned, in Boston I believe. All the media had covered the announcement of the protest in great detail. Some major personalities were scheduled to speak, and estimates repeated in the media were that between twenty-five and fifty thousand protestors were expected to attend. The day arrived and the protest occurred, with considerable media fanfare.
A day or two later, a major radio commentator began a commentary on one of the speeches presented. The speaker had made three main points in his speech, and the commentator wanted to spend some time talking about those points. During his responses to the main points made by the presenter, the commentator took calls from a number of people. I had the opportunity to listen to the show and the comments by folks who called in, as well as the commentator. However, after just a few minutes I confess I completely lost track of the commentators points, in consideration of what was happening aside from that during the broadcast. Heres what happened with the calls.
Some agreed with him, of course, but others disagreed with what was said by the speaker and with what his words were intended to convey; they disputed both the content and the intent of the speakers presentation, as well as the responses by the commentator. Even though the presentation was taped, several times the commentator had to play back a part of the speech to affirm the accuracy of his claims regarding what was actually said by the speaker.
At the beginning of his presentation he made the comment that he seriously doubted the number of people at the protest came anywhere near the announced expectation, and invited anyone with any information about attendance numbers to call the show. Since the protest had been relatively short in duration, it was reasonable that the number of people there was fairly stable: those that came probably stayed the whole time.
At least three people called in with comments regarding attendance numbers at the protest. Several others called in, but these three specifically talked about attendance. The first was a strong supporter of the protest. Among the points he made during his call, he commented that while the attendance did not meet expectations, he estimated that there were at least ten to twelve thousand people attending the protest, and that others he had talked to during and after the protest had agreed on this number.
A second caller had been at the protest but was not a supporter. He had business interests in the immediate area, which placed him in close proximity to the podium during the speeches. He commented that the previous caller had greatly overestimated the number of people in attendance. He estimated that at most there were only six to eight thousand people at the rally.
The third caller was to me the most interesting. He was a law enforcement officer assigned to provide security and police protection at the protest, as part of a task force provided by the city. As an officer specifically trained in such activities, he was trained in methods of crowd estimation, and so he was the only caller with actual training and experience in making a realistic determination of the size of the crowd. Im familiar with that training and those techniques, so I recognized that he did indeed understand the methods for making such a determination. He had worked the protest from a vantage point that allowed him to make an effective estimate of crowd size. His comment was that each of the earlier callers had made the common error of overestimating the number of people in such a group. His calculations, which he had verified with the security detail leaders, was that somewhere between two and four thousand people had been present during the protest, with the number being such a wide spread due to the potential for overlapping attendance (even though they did not believe that many had come and gone). His estimate for planning purposes was up to four thousand: his estimate on the phone of the more realistic probable number was twenty-five hundred to three thousand.
Now none of this, of course, had anything to do with the nature of the protest, or with the subject of the protest (the coming war), or with the material presented during the speech the commentator was discussing. Given the information on this event that Ive provided, what reasonable conclusions would you draw, what assumptions would you think reasonable regarding the protest? What things come to your mind as being likely conclusions a person might draw from this information?
Here is the thing that struck me in the midst of this radio show, and so distracted me that Ive totally forgotten the points made by the speaker at the protest or the counter-points made by the commentator. What happened was that I realized that we had the stories of several different witnesses to that protest, providing entirely different pictures of the attendance of people to the protest. Estimates were not just slightly different, they were vastly and significantly different, ranging from as high as twelve thousand people present to as low as only twenty-five hundred. Now that is a rather extreme spread, a startling difference in the reported number of people present. In addition, there were varying witness testimonies about what was said, even though modern technology allowed an exactly accurate record of the speakers words, and even though it had only been a day or so since the actual event. So even with all the modern technological resources available, there was still conflicting information about the content of the presentation. But neither of those things was particularly startling to me; neither of those sets of events was particularly noteworthy. Heres what I found interesting, and totally distracting.
During all this discussion, and numerous other discussions over the next few days about the protest, the number of people at the protest, and the arguments delivered at the protest, not a single person anywhere ever suggested that the protest did not happen. Not one. Ever. It never occurred to anyone that the differences in reported numbers, or the reported variations in the details of the speech, would suggest that the protest never happened at all. It never occurred to anyone in the media or anyone else to suggest that such discrepancies were reasonable cause to believe the protest never happened at all.
Now I find that interesting.
A day or two later, a major radio commentator began a commentary on one of the speeches presented. The speaker had made three main points in his speech, and the commentator wanted to spend some time talking about those points. During his responses to the main points made by the presenter, the commentator took calls from a number of people. I had the opportunity to listen to the show and the comments by folks who called in, as well as the commentator. However, after just a few minutes I confess I completely lost track of the commentators points, in consideration of what was happening aside from that during the broadcast. Heres what happened with the calls.
Some agreed with him, of course, but others disagreed with what was said by the speaker and with what his words were intended to convey; they disputed both the content and the intent of the speakers presentation, as well as the responses by the commentator. Even though the presentation was taped, several times the commentator had to play back a part of the speech to affirm the accuracy of his claims regarding what was actually said by the speaker.
At the beginning of his presentation he made the comment that he seriously doubted the number of people at the protest came anywhere near the announced expectation, and invited anyone with any information about attendance numbers to call the show. Since the protest had been relatively short in duration, it was reasonable that the number of people there was fairly stable: those that came probably stayed the whole time.
At least three people called in with comments regarding attendance numbers at the protest. Several others called in, but these three specifically talked about attendance. The first was a strong supporter of the protest. Among the points he made during his call, he commented that while the attendance did not meet expectations, he estimated that there were at least ten to twelve thousand people attending the protest, and that others he had talked to during and after the protest had agreed on this number.
A second caller had been at the protest but was not a supporter. He had business interests in the immediate area, which placed him in close proximity to the podium during the speeches. He commented that the previous caller had greatly overestimated the number of people in attendance. He estimated that at most there were only six to eight thousand people at the rally.
The third caller was to me the most interesting. He was a law enforcement officer assigned to provide security and police protection at the protest, as part of a task force provided by the city. As an officer specifically trained in such activities, he was trained in methods of crowd estimation, and so he was the only caller with actual training and experience in making a realistic determination of the size of the crowd. Im familiar with that training and those techniques, so I recognized that he did indeed understand the methods for making such a determination. He had worked the protest from a vantage point that allowed him to make an effective estimate of crowd size. His comment was that each of the earlier callers had made the common error of overestimating the number of people in such a group. His calculations, which he had verified with the security detail leaders, was that somewhere between two and four thousand people had been present during the protest, with the number being such a wide spread due to the potential for overlapping attendance (even though they did not believe that many had come and gone). His estimate for planning purposes was up to four thousand: his estimate on the phone of the more realistic probable number was twenty-five hundred to three thousand.
Now none of this, of course, had anything to do with the nature of the protest, or with the subject of the protest (the coming war), or with the material presented during the speech the commentator was discussing. Given the information on this event that Ive provided, what reasonable conclusions would you draw, what assumptions would you think reasonable regarding the protest? What things come to your mind as being likely conclusions a person might draw from this information?
Here is the thing that struck me in the midst of this radio show, and so distracted me that Ive totally forgotten the points made by the speaker at the protest or the counter-points made by the commentator. What happened was that I realized that we had the stories of several different witnesses to that protest, providing entirely different pictures of the attendance of people to the protest. Estimates were not just slightly different, they were vastly and significantly different, ranging from as high as twelve thousand people present to as low as only twenty-five hundred. Now that is a rather extreme spread, a startling difference in the reported number of people present. In addition, there were varying witness testimonies about what was said, even though modern technology allowed an exactly accurate record of the speakers words, and even though it had only been a day or so since the actual event. So even with all the modern technological resources available, there was still conflicting information about the content of the presentation. But neither of those things was particularly startling to me; neither of those sets of events was particularly noteworthy. Heres what I found interesting, and totally distracting.
During all this discussion, and numerous other discussions over the next few days about the protest, the number of people at the protest, and the arguments delivered at the protest, not a single person anywhere ever suggested that the protest did not happen. Not one. Ever. It never occurred to anyone that the differences in reported numbers, or the reported variations in the details of the speech, would suggest that the protest never happened at all. It never occurred to anyone in the media or anyone else to suggest that such discrepancies were reasonable cause to believe the protest never happened at all.
Now I find that interesting.
