YESTERDAY our local Saudi papers carried a news item entitled “87% of Saudis Support Women Voting.” If you read the headline, you would think a social revolution had suddenly occurred.

We all know that the voices opposed to women voting are much louder and stronger than the ones supporting it. But wait a minute! Read the first paragraph of the item and it is immediately clear that this statistic — as with so many other of our statistics — is seriously flawed.

It is not really an accurate statistic but an assumption. The survey on which the figures were based was carried out on a very small group of people — according to the article only 240. This is far too small a number to be accepted as a general fact, applicable to the entire Saudi population. This really makes us wonder about the truth of many “facts” we accept unquestioningly.

In the most recent census last September, the final official figure was challenged by many people who said they had never been visited by any census official and hence had not been counted. Yet, let’s blithely assume that the number we have is the correct one since it is the only figure we have — but is that enough or near enough for it to be included in a book of facts?

Trying to find the exact number of the Saudi population from Saudi websites was quite a job. I jumped from one official site to another and came up with different numbers on each one. In the end, I was totally confused until a colleague found an article published by Arab News with the latest official number.

If someone needs the number for research and ends up using the “available” figures, no matter how true or updated they are, how scientific will his research will be? How accurate and dependable can his findings possibly be.

Maybe at this point we should start re-evaluating the results of much of our local research. Even when a survey is done officially, there is inevitably some missing information that if included, might have given a clearer picture or even a different one.The Ministry of Labor recently conducted a count of the unemployed in Saudi Arabia.

The final number which the ministry announced was soon challenged and felt by most people to be far too small. Indeed, the ministry’s figure did not even include unemployed women. My question here is how can we assess a problem and solve it if we do not have exact figures. Is it enough to have approximate figures and are approximate figures and approximate facts reliable enough to build on?

We simply do not understand the importance of having the right data. All our polls and statistics are done haphazardly and, I add, with a high degree of rashness. For example, when foreign journalists try to find the exact number of college graduates in the Kingdom, we just tell give them the approximate figures which we are not very certain of. This reflects badly on our image and if we want to be taken seriously, we must think again.

A Saudi woman who lives in Dubai once wrote to me saying that some research published in the local press which was picked up by Gulf papers revealed some shocking facts about youth in Saudi Arabia. The alleged survey was concerned with Saudi teenagers’ attitudes about the sweeping reforms underway in the Kingdom.

The results of the survey were based on only 10 high school classes — males only! — and illustrated shocking tendencies in our young men’s thoughts and ideas.

The reader was angry because, as she very correctly pointed out, “ You cannot generalize on the basis of a such a small number. Reading the survey made me feel the situation is hopless.” Whatever the situation is, the truth cannot be found by surveying only 10 classes. The reader was certainly right but if such surveys are our only source, what can we do to find out the truth? Should we stop accepting these skewed figures? Wouldn’t it be better if the government established a center for producing accurate and trustworthy statistics?

We rush to congratulate ourselves on the puny efforts made to record facts which may well misrepresent reality — just as the papers misrepresented the reality about the number of Saudis supporting votes for women.

Our wishful thinking takes over too often but unfortunately, there is a huge difference between what we want the truth to be and the actual facts and realities around us.