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Lies and Statistics
libfemme ( 04/16/2004, 11:00:54 )I feel I owe Talon an apology. His/Her article is very well written and I loved. But it brought to mind a topic that I thinks bears discussion, because it is one that all of us have a stake in. And since I want to discuss the topic, not Talon, I thought I should really put this in a separate thread. The questions is What is the meaning of numbers in science?Science has great influence over modern society. Where religion or politics or government once would have held sway, now many people look to science for answers. Controlling science has become, therefore, a way to control society. The thing that makes science different from other subjects is its reliance on numbers. If you can't measure it or count it, it ain't science. The ability to measure gives science an objectivity that opinion does not have.The problem is not everyone who relies on science also understands number. Numbers can be used to mislead and misinform. It's called lying with statistics. Everbody has to make choices. You can't report everything. So what you choose to report becomes what you consider significant. So too with numbers. What you choose to add or subtract together, how you measure and compare, all becomes what is significant.We should alway ask ourselves, however, what do those numbers mean? Why is that being measured and not something else? What is included in that number and what is not? Are they valid comparisons?Economist Thomas Sowell's gave a speech in June of 2001 on Lying With Statistics. A subject an economist would have reason to know a lot about. He said: "Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled." Did you know that? It is just as well if you did not, because it is not true. It takes no research to prove that it is not true. If there had been just two children in America gunned down in 1950, then doubling that number every year would have meant that, by 1980, there would have been one billion American children gunned down -- more than four times the total population of the United States at that time. Yet the claim that was quoted did not come from some supermarket tabloid. It appeared in a reputable academic journal. It is one of innumerable erroneous statistical claims generated by advocates of one cause or another. Too often, those in the media who are sympathetic to these causes repeat such claims uncritically until they become "well-known facts" by sheer repetition.....People have been lying for centuries. What makes their statistical lies so dangerous today is that so many people in the media are ready to accept and broadcast statistics turned out by activist groups with an axe to grind -- when those groups share the liberal-left orientation of the media...Hysteria sells -- and accuracy takes time, which could make the news stale by the time the statisticians check it out.... The one thing that all these distortions and falsifications of statistics have in common is their thrust in the direction of creating artificial "problems" and "crises" to be dealt with by imposing government "solutions." That is apparently what makes them so attractive to the media that these shaky numbers are uncritically accepted and proclaimed to the public."I think Sowell's comments apply to the issue of cloning and biomedical freedom in general at this critical time in history. If we do not challenge the "figures" cited so carelessly by so many people they will become accepted wisedom. The questions to always ask are "How do you know?", "Where does that figure come from?" and "What does that mean?" I'm sure you can think of a few others.
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