Numbers Never Speak for Themselves: Thoughts on the Abuse of Numbers, Bad Social Policy and Propaganda
Pundits, politicians, and activists abuse numbers in more ways that one Medium post could begin to cover. Everyone needs to be aware of a couple of popular scams pulled on the public to sell ideas that are bad ideas.
Sex Crimes, Lies, and Xenophobia:
Rape happens everywhere, but not at the same rate. A certain segment of xenophobic and dishonest Americans will take every opportunity to manipulate statistics about sex crimes to remind us that foreign lands populated by Brown and Black people are dangerous. Sweden allegedly has 300% more rape than the United States. This is a claim that pops up sometimes on YouTube and Quora. Search Google and verify this for yourself if you are bored.
It does look like rape is more common in Sweden, but there are a few problems with this hasty conclusion. You’ve probably been taught to examine your assumptions. This is one of those times when you really want to do that. Why might rape seem to be way more common in Sweden? Ask yourself these questions:
Is rape categorized the same way in Sweden and the United States?
Are Swedes and Americans equally likely to report being raped?
The answers to those questions don’t matter for now. What matters now is the idea of looking at the two things being compared and trying to decide if they are truly comparable, or not. One might be charitable and say this Sweden versus USA rape thing is shared in good faith and was created with honest intentions. Many times, when ideologies and religions are involved, people don’t act in good faith. Sometimes people deliberately gloss over important details or pick data points that make their case.
Countries That Ban Guns are Super Dangerous, Right?
No. Another meme that’s gone around the dumber parts of the Web tries to make the point that every country with a higher murder rate than the USA bans guns. The table lists homicide rates for many countries, including El Salvador, Mexico, Rwanda, and the United States. The inventor of this dishonest table may have known it was pure nonsense or not. We may never know if this meme was a deliberate act of propaganda or not.
What we can say for certain is this — the connection between gun bans and homicide here is completely nonsensical. Countries with a high poverty rate or where there is a civil war or where powerful drug cartels can buy off police and politicians can’t really be compared to the United States or Germany or Japan. If someone really wanted to understand the connection between gun bans and violence, they’d have to do far more work than just looking up homicide rates and gun laws in a few dozen nations.
In conclusion, always check to be sure a comparison is valid. The more emotional or important the issue, the more important it becomes to check things out. If anyone throws a bunch of numbers at you in order to make a point about social problems, or social policy, make the numbers mean what the other person wants them to mean.
And…be extra careful if you find yourself tempted to agree that immigration is bad, religion is bad, guns are good, or capitalism is raping the planet.
