We believe that statistics can be used to prove anything. Statistics are used so often in debate that we now often recite some variation of a joke about statistics: “80% of all statistics are meaningless” or “72% of all statistics can be used to prove someone else’s statistics are wrong”. The problem with the use of most statistics to back up arguments is that statistics are generally produced by people or organizations with an interest in the statistics that they produce proving one side or another. It’s not so much that the statistics themselves are manipulated, but the methods used to achieve those results are twisted to produce the desired result.
I am saying no more. Using statistics in debate is a useless exercise. Using statistics to promote a position of the culture of death, be it trying to prove that guns are useful (they aren’t) or abortions have a positive effect of society (they don’t), is craven and immoral. Aggregating human lives into means and variances is contrary to natural law. Using statistics to support the holocaust of “gun rights” is reminiscent of Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil. We have interest groups and bureaucracies arguing over words, twisting so-called “facts” to their position and practically cheering as the bodies are stacked higher because they think they have found the one example that backs up their preexisting beliefs. The pro-gun types and pro-abortionists will never admit how much they have in common.
http://scrambledmegsntoast.xanga.com/721904687/your-statistics-mean-nothing/
Scrambled Megs n Toast 