Information, Statistics, persuasion

• Each year, Dihydrogen Monoxide is a known causative component in many thousands of deaths and is a major contributor to millions upon millions of dollars in damage to property and the environment. Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are: • Inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities, can cause death.• Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.• DHMO forms a major component of acid rain.• Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.• DHMO is a major contributor to soil erosion.• It is found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.• Increased presence of DHMO in the atmosphere and oceans is associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere, and in hurricanes including deadly storms in Florida, New Orleans and other areas of the southeastern U.S.

Using information to persuade

Using Information to persuade

Polls & Surveys• Polls and surveys are simply attempts to

discover what people think about a given topic.• These have limited value at the best of times.• The most we can hope for is an accurate

“snapshot” of how a particular population feels at a given moment.

• They sometimes have predictive value for elections.

• They are occasionally useful for determining civil, provincial and federal legislation.

• While useful in a limited sense, in common use they are virtually useless

Surveys and their uses• Surveys of the scientific community can tell us what the majority of scientists think about a

subject.– Caveats:

• This doesn’t mean that they’re right. Virtually every scientific theory has been accepted by a majority before it’s overturned. Bear in mind that one of the big arguments against Copernicus’ theory that the Earth revolved around the sun was the fact that virtually every scientist of the time believed otherwise.

• To be truly representative, the survey should only involve experts in the field under discussion. You don’t ask physicists to give their opinion about the homeless issue or psychologists to discuss safe radiation levels. And as for what celebrities and sports figure think about anything – who cares?

• Surveys can help politicians decide what the public considers the most important social issues and what they want done about it.– Caveats:

• Just because a majority of the population believes something is important doesn’t necessarily mean it is. As a result, many millions of dollars can be spent “solving” issues that make little practical difference to the well-being of society.

• Politicians are often in the position of making a particular social issue seem more relevant than it is by bringing it to the attention of the press. As a result, the general population can come to believe that a crisis exists when none does, an example of this being marijuana.

Anecdotal Evidence• Anecdotal evidence may indicate something that should be

looked at further, but it is not, itself, evidence. • This comes up often when talking about gender differences.

For instance, a survey may indicate that a vast majority of women enjoy shopping. Upon reading this, some woman is bound to exclaim, “That’s not true! I’m a woman and I hate shopping!”

• This, however, does not disprove the survey any more than the fact that I hate sports somehow disproves the assertion that most men like sports.

• Surveys and other statistics must be disproved from the same level that they have been created:– Showing that the study was flawed– Showing that the interpretation was flawed– Producing a similar study that contradicts the data

Statistics

• It is often said that “statistics can prove anything.” This is not true of good statistics, but most of what we see cannot be called “good.”

• And even good statistics can have their problems, especially in interpretation.

Statisticians on Statistics• Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey at the University of Chicago's National Opinion

Research Center.– "All studies are possibly wrong, whether they're surveys, clinical trials, or whatever."

• David Murray, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Statistical Assessment Service.– “The tide of bad statistics is rising. It's everywhere now. In politics. In polling. The interpretation of

public reaction. Physical sciences. It's the way you win arguments. The way you make points. … It's like flying when it's really foggy and you tend to rely on instruments rather than looking out the window. It's great, unless the radar is on the fritz. Social scientists are captivated by the radar screen. They don't look out the window anymore."

• Joel Best, professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware and author of "Damned Lies and Statistics" (University of California Press, 2001)– Most bad statistics are less the result of deliberate deception than incompetence, confusion or

self-serving selection of numbers that reaffirm one's beliefs.– “A definition is everything. … Some studies have found 90% of workers are bullied in the

workplace. Others show 90% of students are bullied in schools. If you define bully broadly enough as people being mean to you, it's amazing 10% of the population has not been bullied."

– “Recently … scientists -- under increasing pressure to produce newsworthy results -- have started marketing their results to the general public, bypassing the traditional safeguards provided by peer reviewed journals. That's how you make your own work more visible. That's how you get that next grant … Part of what's going on is we as a society have an appreciation for science, and there's the sense we ought to get the facts about one thing or another. … Activists have learned to package their claims as facts by including numbers.”

Statisticians on Statistics (cont.)• Often statistics are nothing more than pure guesses. Joel Best quotes

Mitch Snyder, the activist for the homeless, who said his estimate of 2-3 million homeless people was based on getting on the phone and talking to a lot of people. Such guesses are problematic both because activists tend to guess high and because, once reported, the numbers take on a life of their own. Best says:– People lose track of the estimate's original source, but they assume the

number must be correct because it appears everywhere -- in news reports, politicians' speeches, articles in scholarly journals and law reviews, and so on. Over time, as people repeat the number, they may begin to change its meaning, embellish the statistic. . . After a newsmagazine story reported "researchers suggest that up to 200,000 people exhibit a stalker's traits," other news reports picked up the "suggested" figure and confidently repeated that there were 200,000 people being stalked.

Example 1: Magical suicides

• In 1985, the gay newspaper, The Washington Blade reported that as many as 3,000 gay youths kill themselves a year.

• This is over 1,000 more suicides by gay youth than the total number of annual teen suicides.

Example 2:Get out of the house, ya bum!

• According to the American Census Bureau, the percentage of people ages 18 to 34 who live at home with their family increased from 12.5 million to 18.6 million since 1970, a jump of 48%.

• This statistic has been reported regularly along with articles and editorials bemoaning the number of people refusing to go out and get places of their own.

• There’s even a movie about it called Failure to Launch.• However:

– In 1970, the U.S. Census Bureau reports there were approximately 204 million Americans. – In 2006, the estimate is approximately 297 million Americans. – That’s an approximate 32% increase in population.– This means there has only been been a 16% increase in the number of people between the ages of

18 to 34 living at home.• Not so dramatic. But along with this, we must also consider the background situation.

– In 1970 the United States was in the middle of the Vietnam War, which meant a great many men between the ages of 18-34 were not living at home because they were in the army.

– As a result, the 1970 numbers may have been artificially lower than they otherwise would have been.

Example 3:When my mother-in-law sits around the house…

• Canada's Obesity Problem Could Lower Children's Life ExpectancyMarch 28, 2007 11:40 a.m. ESTDanielle Godard - All Headline News Staff WriterOttawa, ON (AHN) –

A House of Commons committee on health made the shocking revelation Tuesday that Canada's children will likely die sooner than their parents due to childhood obesity, while smoking and drinking deaths have now been outranked by obesity as the number-one Canadian killer.

Committee chair Rob Merrifield said he was shocked by the study, which said 26 per cent of Canadians between the ages of two and 17 are overweight or obese.

In 1978, overweight children only accounted for 15 per cent. Smoking and drinking deaths have now been outranked by obesity as the number-one

Canadian killer. Overall, the report found the proportion of children aged 2-5 who were overweight or

obese has stayed virtually the same from 1978 to 2004. However, the proportion of overweight children aged 6-11 doubled while the rate was up 14 per cent to 29 per cent for children aged 12-17.

AHN Media Corp, March 28, 2007

• Toronto Sun, March 28, 2007. “Battle with blubber.” – The situtation has reached epidemic proportions as obesity rates among children have

risen almost threefold between 1978 and 2004.

Example 3: Cont.

• First , let’s do some simple arithmatic.• From the AHN Media Corp. story:

Committee chair Rob Merrifield said he was shocked by the study, which said 26 per cent of Canadians between the ages of two and 17 are overweight or obese.

In 1978, overweight children only accounted for 15 per cent.• The story continues by saying:

The situation has reached epidemic proportions as obesity rates among children have risen almost threefold between 1978 and 2004.

• A 100% increase means that something has doubled• A 200% increase means something has increased three-fold.• A change between 15% to 26% is not even doubled.• Therefore, somebody goofed.

Example 3: Cont.• The federal government adopted the BMI in the 1990s as a

guideline to help doctors determine when to address medically their patients' overweight or obese status.

• Initially, the BMI tables used by the federal government labeled men as overweight if they scored 28 or above, and women at 27 and above.

• In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight score to 25 for both men and women.

• Under the 1999 Metropolitan Life tables, a 5'3" woman with a large frame and a weight of 151 pounds was not considered overweight. Under the revised BMI, however, she has a BMI score of 27, solidly in the overweight column.

Example 3: Cont.• This decision [to redefine “overweight” and “obese”] was made by

a National Institutes of Health obesity panel chaired by Xavier Pi-Sunyer, one of the most influential obesity researchers in the country.

• Over the years, Pi-Sunyer has received support from virtually every leading weight-loss company, including Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Ortho-McNeil, Wyeth-Ayerst, Knoll, Weight Watchers, and Roche. He has served on the advisory boards of Wyeth-Ayerst, Knoll, Abbott, Johnson & Johnson, and McNeil Nutritionals.

• He once headed up the Weight Watchers Foundation and is currently a board member of that organization.

• Pi-Sunyer gave the "obesity overview" presentation on behalf of Knoll, maker of the weight-loss drug Meridia, at a 1996 FDA advisory panel hearing on the drug.

• He has also been paid to sign his name to ghost-written journal articles used to promote the dangerous weight-loss combination known as "fen-phen."

Example 4:Are there enough cemeteries?

• When doing his thesis in 1995, a graduate student grabbed media attention with his statistics that the number of children killed by gunfire had doubled each year since 1950.

• This statistic was picked up an re-printed in various publications.

• Following is a chart showing what these figures would mean.

1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959

2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024

1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969

2,048 4,096 8,192 16,384 32,768 65,536 65.536 131,072 262,144 524,288

1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979

1.049 mil 2.097 mil 4.2 mil 8.4 mil 16.8 mil 33.5 mil 67.1 mil 134.2 mil 268.4 mil1 536.9 mil

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989

1.1 bil 2.2 bil 4.3 bil 8.6 bil 2 17.2 bil 34.4 bil 68.7 bil 137.4 bil 274.9 bil 549.8 bil

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

1.1 tril 2.2 tril 4.4 tril 8.8 tril 17.6 tril 35.2 tril

Number of children killed by firearms doubled each year since 1950

Example 4: Cont.• The student had misread a 1994 report by the

Children's Defense Fund that found the number of American children killed each year by guns had doubled since 1950 – not doubled every year since 1950. In other words, it had increased 100%, not 17.6 trillion %.

• Even this statistic isn’t as alarming as it might appear at first since the population has increased 73% since 1950, meaning that in 44 years there has been a 27% increase in the number of children killed by guns – not 100%