I expect most of you have seen this Tommy Hilfiger PSA for Autismspeaks.org, or have heard it on the radio.
Odds of achieving his dream in the fashion industry one in 23 million? With 311 million people in the country that would mean that only 14 people have achieved their dream in the fashion industry. But wait, Hilfiger was born in 1963. The country had only 189 million people then. So with 1 in 23 million odds of achieving his dream, that would mean that only 8 other people existing at that time would also have achieved their dreams. And this is, of course, assuming that every single man, woman and child in the entire country also dreamt of making it big in the fashion industry and was competing with him.
I would like to know how they came up with this 23 million number. Why isn’t it 22 million or 24 million? Or 5 thousand? Truthfully, I never believe any statistic that is a precise number for something that seems immeasurable to me (like the temperature of the earth.) If they had just said one in a million I wouldn’t have batted an eye.
I’m sure Autismspeaks is a very worthy organization. It’s certainly a worthy cause. But lying about it only harms it.
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