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In April of this year, the U.S. Census Bureau put out a press release titled "The Nuclear Family Rebounds." The release highlighted results of a study entitled "Living Arrangements of Children: Fall 1996." Just a month later, newspapers around the country were running stories with headlines such as this one from the New York Times: "For First Time, Nuclear Families Drop Below 25% of Households." That round of stories was based on other reports from the census bureau. So what happened in just a month? Back in the mid-1980s, there was a good deal of press attention directed towards the issue of missing children. One advocacy group claimed that 50,000 children were abducted each year. However, a Pulitzer-prize winning series of articles in the Denver Post found that number to be off by an amazing amount. FBI figures put the real number at a few hundred abductees a year -- still quite serious, but nowhere near the tens of thousands that had been reported. In this hour of Science Friday, we'll be talking about how statistics can be mangled and wrangled in support of arguments, and about what you can do to protect yourself from being taken in. Call in with your thoughts and comments at 1-800-989-8255, and share your opinions online in our Listeners' Lounge (registration required)
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Host/Executive Producer/Editor of Science Friday: Ira Flatow Senior Producer of Science Friday: Karin Vergoth Executive web producer: Ira Flatow Web producer: Charles Bergquist
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