funny numbers

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. (Benjamin Disraeli)

Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics. (Fletcher Knebel)

Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions. (Evan Escar)

Besides being one of the most annoying courses I took in Business undergrad, statistics generally have a love/hate relationship in my book.

I love them because they are like my trump card in an argument with someone.

Yeah but blacks only make up about 10% of the entire US population!

(SILENT PAUSE OF DEFEAT)

I hate them because they can always be twisted to attempt to appeal to your logic.

Of those who have had sex, more than one half of teen boys (55%) and the majority of teen girls (70%) said they wish they had waited longer to have sex .

source

But here’s another take on statistics. We all know they are most conveying when visualized … but this is something else.

Running the Numbers
An American Self-Portrait

This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. My underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

Cans Seurat, 2007
60×92″

Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.