Sue Ellen- Peeve of Statistical Hype

If you read the papers these days, you know that there are lots of crises in the world. Crime crises, drug crises, terrorism crises, environmental crises, child-abuse crises, pornography crises... you name it. Each of these crises presents a hideous, immediate danger to All of Us, Our Communities, and (worst of all) Our Children. All kinds of numbers get thrown around to tell us how bad all these crises are.

What gets Sue Ellen all excited is that 97.83 percent of those numbers are crap.

When was the last time you saw the popular media really sit down and look hard at a statistic? Not in some half-assed, superficial "opponents dispute the accuracy of these statistics" way, but with a real, hard-headed analysis, or with real information you could use to do your own? When was the last time you saw a real citation for the source of a statistic? When was the last time you saw methodology discussed meaningfully?

How hard is it to get some bogus number into circulation? Looks like the more emotional the topic, the easier it is. Just call yourself a foundation, write yourself a press release, say the end of the world is coming, and drag Our Children into the matter. Call your number an "estimate". Presto! Instant authority. Nobody asks for your sources, nobody asks for your methods... all we hear is "The Frooblenortz Foundation estimates that 27 percent of all children are exposed to images of eggplant fondling by age 13". You'll have eggplant fondling legislation before you know what's hit you.

The galling part isn't so much that this stuff gets printed, although it's hard to figure out why an "estimate" from some bozo with an axe to grind is news, or why we should care about some random number that may or may not have any connection to a topic of interest. The galling part is that people buy it... statistics, which should be one of the few ways of separating fact from fiction, become tools for creating panic.

I'm not saying this is a new thing... Disraeli's complaint about "lies, damned lies, and statistics" was around before any of us was born. Boy, does Sue Ellen get excited about it, though...