The percentages look damning, until one recalls the famous adage popularized by Mark Twain: There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. If those cases increased by 59% over five years, what's the scale involved? How many cases does a 59% increase entail?Not many, as it turns out. The entire data set consists of 200 cases or fewer in each of the five years...
Hot Air then provides this chart to compare that 200 number to the whole:
If you were to chart this independently, 200 doesn't fit on the scale. In fact it's more than 12,000 short of rising to the level that would fit on the scale. That is to say, if it were to increase by a factor of 60 it still wouldn't fit on the scale -- not a "59% increase," which is a little more than half again more, but 60 times more and it still wouldn't make the chart.
It can't be a coincidence that journalists assigned to the gun beat are so bad at math so consistently across decades.
UPDATE: Another journalistic storyline, this time on guns to Mexican cartels because of 'lax gun laws' in the USA, that proves unreliable.
Sometimes a person or even an entire organisation can have a centrist or moderate leaning. They don't want to look extremist, so they find some penguin they believe can be safely pushed off the ice to protect the herd. But with gun control as an excellent example, it is good to remember that some ideas are bad right down to the root. One doesn't have to be rude or strident, but there is also no need to think that things will go down better if we choose some midpoint as our starting point to show we are reasonable. A bad idea is a bad idea.
ReplyDeleteIn practical politics we may get driven to a compromise to get half a loaf. That is quite different.
It was a pathetic article. I spent a good bit of time on that comments thread this morning.
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