Yesterday at Forbes.com Micah Solomon posted an article titled A Professional Keynote Speaker Reveals All (Including Why Professional Speakers Need Pants).
In one sentence he meant to say that (my underline):
“No poll has ever shown that Americans are more scared of public speaking than they are of death.”
But, that’s not what he said. Instead it was that:
“No poll has ever shown that more Americans are scared of public speaking than they are of death.”
That second claim is rubbish, and so I commented that it was, and named three surveys which showed that (Bruskin 1973, Bruskin-Goldring 1993, and Roper 1996).
Next he replied that I should go look at Snopes.com, and I replied that thread mentions my research and blog posts.
Then he replied by bringing up a difference between a “commonly mentioned” fear and a “worst fear”, and quoted a July 2012 press release about Dwyer and Davidson’s magazine article that I’d already discussed in May 2012. I’ve discussed both types of surveys in a post titled Either way you look at it, public speaking really is not our greatest fear.
Finally when I quoted his original sentence, he realized that it indeed was rubbish, and changed it.
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