A fine example of false precision, and using quantitative terms where they do not apply is in the following "study":

http://www.rd.com/national-interest/...s/article.html

A recent Reader's Digest article, where they rank colleges for safety, using 19 different variables.

The problem with the study? Iowa State University of Ames, Iowa is rated as the second most unsafe campus in the US. (my alma mater, obtw) Anyone who has ever been to Ames, Iowa, will admit that something, somewhere has to be screwed up if ISU is quantified as the second least safe campus in America.

Or that the University of Worcester is like 4 from the bottom, while Boston U. is 4 from the top in safety ratings to find an "apples to apples" comparison. Anyone with a full and functional brain pan could walk around either campus and realize that Boston U. (my "other" alma mater) is probably a less safe place to be than Worcester.

Frankly, they chose largely irrelevant variables vis-a-vis safety, and then assigned them arbitrary values, which they then took very seriously in their analysis.

In other words, most of these folks are full of crap.