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Notes -
I mean, it's both, and it's basically always both, isn't it? One doesn't just accidentally present data badly like this, they do it either intentionally or because they lack the mathematical skills or knowledge to understand that it's presented badly. If we disregard the former possibility and posit that they're doing this out of mathematical ignorance, then it follows that presenting mathematical concepts that they don't understand in a way as if they did understand them is a deliberate act of bending facts. Now, most people think they understand the things they write about, so most likely these authors didn't realize that they didn't understand what they were presenting. This points to a deliberate lack of understanding of one's own mathematical abilities by not checking one's own skills against those of experts, and just taking it on faith that they know what they're talking about. People overestimating their own abilities is basically a cliche at this point; as such, if one doesn't check if one's own estimation of one's abilities are accurate by verifying with experts, especially with those who have biases that challenge or offend oneself, then one is deliberately remaining ignorant, in a way that allows them to, in this case, present bad data without even realizing that they're doing so, thus absolving them of all sense of guilt of being dishonest while allowing them to get all the benefits of being dishonest.
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