Dying With Statistics

One of the problems with statistics is that people with an agenda feel justified in manipulating them to meet their political goals. If these goals happen to involve bleeding-heart "causes" - or even any situations where people's well-being is at stake -- then the manipulation is even more brazen.

Forty million are Americans are out of work and suffering! Okay, fine - the number is only twenty million, and most of them either don't want jobs or they have the brain wattage of wet salad - why are you quibbling over numbers? Are you insensitive the needs of twenty million Americans, mister big smarty-pants math stickler?

Apparently one of the fringe benefits of "caring" is you can multiply up (or down) by whatever factor you choose. Basic arithmetic and statistical accuracy become subjective provided you perch on high enough moral ground - in your own mind, of course.

So when I saw the number - 655,000 Iraqis killed - the first thing I knew was that this number was, excuse my Spanglish, total and complete bullshit. Reading the CNN article it's easy enough to highlight the name of the researcher (Dr. Gilbert Burnham) and right-click a Google search. Not six items down in the results list is another item from two years ago from the same guy which estimated 100,000 dead in the Iraq conflict.

Don't get me wrong, the U.S. military can be deadly - mostly towards combatants, but sometimes to civilians. And I'll even fall prey to the cynical play-on-sympathy gambit and concede that even a couple of thousand dead is a sad example of our failure as human creatures to find another way to live peacefully, when you really think about it.

But ultimately the authors of this study are either asking us to believe that half a million folks have been slaughtered in two years - or proving they are just making up numbers from thin air. It's a cynical play on the interest of the American public - who frankly, aren't that stupid - and it's an insult to professional excellence. There are, I hope, still a few folks in the academy who don't draw righteous, political conclusions in advance of gathering their supporting numbers.

When is that election again?

Tags: Iraq, Civilian Deaths