نقل قول:
Statistics often play a role in these efforts to define new social problems as major threats. Several devices-including some that we've already examined -serve this purpose, including: big numbers (estimates that many people are affected suggest that a problem is serious); rapid increases (comparisons across time showing a rapidly growing problem make the situation seem urgent); and geographic and group comparisons (evidence that a problem is worse here than elsewhere [or worse within this group than in others] suggest that the problem need not be this bad-that something could be done