Comment by hugh-avherald
Comment by hugh-avherald 3 days ago
I think "no idea" is an entirely reasonable summary of the magnitude of the uncertainty.
Comment by hugh-avherald 3 days ago
I think "no idea" is an entirely reasonable summary of the magnitude of the uncertainty.
That might be true in measuring abstract absolutes. But I'd agree that if you don't even know if your population is larger or smaller than it was 40 years ago, then it's perfectly fair to say that you have "no idea" what's going on.
Widening your claimed range makes your evidence for the claim stronger. In this situation we can make useful conclusions with strong evidence, with population ranges that are annoyingly wide but not that wide.
To me, "no idea" suggests the number is likely off by an order of magnitude or more, and even the worst case country in this article was less than 2x with bigger countries having better numbers.