Thomas Dalton wrote:
On 29/11/2007, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 28, 2007 11:27 PM, Michal Rosa michal.rosa@gmail.com wrote:
Just a quick example, according to en Wiki the population of Washington DC is 581,530, German Wiki says it's 548.360, according to French Wiki it's 553 523 and Polish Wiki states it's 582 049.
What you're actually seeing here is what happens when data is stated to a higher degree of accuracy than is warranted. When a number which changes daily is quoted so exactly, of course different sources will differ. I'm not sure where this practise of stating populations as if they could be determined down to the individual person came from.
Populations determined from census results can just justifiably stated to full precision, since a census is an exact count, not an estimate. Of course, some people are always going to get missed out, but that's a matter of accuracy, not precision (which is what you meant, I think). Anyone announcing population figures not drawn directly from a census that state it more precisely than nearest 100 are just kidding themselves, IMHO, nearest thousand is probably more appropriate.
As some have said, "Lies, damn lies and statistics." Taken to one significant digit three of them would say that the population was 600,000, but the Germans would leave it at 500,000. :-)
Ec