Well, part way through writing a paper about statistical methods used to compare universities across Canada (the Macleans rankings), I've just about made it through discussing how Enlightenment skepticism a la René Descartes undermines the authoritativeness of such statistics no matter how accurate they become. Specifically, because the entire methodology is predicated on falsifiability and the reduction of doubt, and that we consumers of the rankings information did not collect or analyze the data ourselves.

I was reminded of a passage of Descartes' I read in some course about a triangle and atheists and true knowledge while researching my topic. The Descartes passage fits with the theme of the site, and takes my mind off of statistical correlations (or lack thereof) for the time being, so have a read of the Meditations passagevia Google Books. Perhaps with some more time in a few days/weeks I'll be able to delve into the arguments he puts forth, even if they've been debated for 350 years already.