>>Barbara, the term "massage the data" basically means to lie.

NO IT DOESN'T!!!!!  It means analyzing it in various ways to try to get more
information out of it.

If I have tons of data on growth rates in six villages in rural Mali,
including the child's age and sex, I can give you overall average height and
weights (say).  Or I can "massage the data" and break it down by year
increments, and male/female categories.  For younger kids, I might break it
down by 3 month increments, or 6 months increments, to find, for example,
when it is that well-nourished one year olds in Mali turn into malnourished
3 year olds.  Is it right around age two, when they are being weaned from
breast milk?  I might even to overlapping categories, looking at running
means of weight for age with 0-3 months, 1-4 months, 2-5 months, 3-6 months,
etc.

Or I might look at the growth data for each age/sex category BY VILLAGE,
looking at how the iodine deficiency in one village (manifested by goiters
in the mother) impacts the growth of the kids in that village, compared to
the other villages.  I can compare how children's growth overall in each
village is related to the body mass index of the adults in the village (I
did this, and found that the villages with the fattest mothers had the most
seriously malnourished children!!).

I have never used anyone use the phrase "massaged the data" to mean lying
about what the data say.

Kathy Dettwyler

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