lies, damned lies and statistics: more on "why Klout doesn't count" ...

As I read my Daniel Smith Daily http://paper.li/thedanieljsmith today, I noticed another posting from @animal that I had to jump on. The post in question?

Why @Klout doesn't count - http://bit.ly/dZhIru - via @GautamGhosh @ShelIsrael

Who can resist a saucy post like that?

Actually, the sauce-meister in this instance is Matt Owen, the writer of the article in question.  According to Owen,  the number of followers a person has

"has very little to do with actual, tangible influence.  I'm not going to buy a new lawnmower based on MC Hammer's recommendation, and my Facebook account is an entirely different entity to Twitter."

In effect, he says adding content from two different platforms to account for an amasse of social power is a misrepresentation of the facts -- it's like adding apples and oranges together.  It's a great article.  It's short and not too technical.  I recommend reading it if you haven't yet. And it made me think of Benjamin Disraeli's famous letter to the Editor of The Times in which he wrote: 

Sir, Mr. Peake says that the figures quoted by me disguise plain facts.   

I think Lord Beaconsfield said that there were three degrees of veracity—viz., lies, d—d lies, and statistics.
(accessed 23 Dec 2010. located at: http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/lies.htm)
 
In the right hands numbers are wonderful, amazing and even beautiful.  Numbers are true ... but sometimes the words wrapped around them aren't.
 
I'm not a mathematician nor am I a statistician, but I've had the privilege of wrapping my words around some very gorgeous numbers produced by some very excellent minds.  It's always tempting to manipulate the numbers to prove the words true -- but that's ... well ... not being entirely truthful is it?