# 47,000,000



## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

In a story, I read yesterday that 47,000,000 Americans have Alzheimer's. (I didn't realize we had that many elected officials.)

But then, I found there seems to be something magic on the Internet about the number 47,000,000. This number shows up all over the place. Maybe this is a cult thing? A magic number? A secret code? Hmmmmm? Try googling 47,000,00 and see how many distinct things come up.

Just to reference a few:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/80897.php

http://www.scoopnest.com/user/CNBC/620585751776903168

http://www.christianliferesources.com/article/abortion-can-hurt-woman-one-woman-s-account-1264

http://www.thecompletelawyer.com/?p=325

http://www.smartmetertruth.org/10.html

https://www.ziegler.com/insights/?cat=Case%20Studies

Ralph

And, of course, 87% of all statistics are made up.


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## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

Does see, to be a common number, makes one wonder how they arrived at it lol


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

That does seem ridiculously high......how high and why these others? Now that's the $47,000,000 question


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

Statistics are a wonderful tool that I use in consulting all the time. You take a bunch of WAG (Wild Ass Guess) numbers, run them through 10,000 iterations of a Monte Carlo simulation and you end up with a range of SWAG's (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) that you can use to extrapolate to almost anything. By bounding the probabilities within the P25 - P75 predictive range you remove the tails and outliers which adds credibility to the exercise. If you do it enough, use appropriate WAG's and distribution curves, the number 47,000,000 will end up as the P50 which indicates that it has a 50%-50% chance of being right or wrong. How can you question such a number?


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Mike120 said:


> Statistics are a wonderful tool that I use in consulting all the time. You take a bunch of WAG (Wild Ass Guess) numbers, run them through 10,000 iterations of a Monte Carlo simulation and you end up with a range of SWAG's (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) that you can use to extrapolate to almost anything. By bounding the probabilities within the P25 - P75 predictive range you remove the tails and outliers which adds credibility to the exercise. If you do it enough, use appropriate WAG's and distribution curves, the number 47,000,000 will end up as the P50 which indicates that it has a 50%-50% chance of being right or wrong. How can you question such a number?


Excellent explanation! Not for me to question the validity of such a number.......it's far to mind boggling


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

When I read the topic headline, I thought you were counting the number of projects I have going at any given time....


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