Comments on: Numerical Veracity and the Media http://concreteacademic.com/2009/10/numerical-veracity/ Think sharp: arts, culture, and ideas Mon, 24 May 2010 14:54:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Jeffrey Dale Starr http://concreteacademic.com/2009/10/numerical-veracity/comment-page-1/#comment-154 Jeffrey Dale Starr Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:30:54 +0000 http://concreteacademic.com/?p=84#comment-154 When I heard this news story, I thought the same thing you did - in most "religious" communities (especially in the South) the median age for marriage is much younger. So the key question isn't the birth rate, but I would say the birth rate out of wedlock. And more than that, how about factoring in the abortion rate? THAT would be an interesting comparison. When I heard this news story, I thought the same thing you did – in most "religious" communities (especially in the South) the median age for marriage is much younger. So the key question isn't the birth rate, but I would say the birth rate out of wedlock. And more than that, how about factoring in the abortion rate? THAT would be an interesting comparison.

]]> By: Ezra http://concreteacademic.com/2009/10/numerical-veracity/comment-page-1/#comment-82 Ezra Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:55:32 +0000 http://concreteacademic.com/?p=84#comment-82 Anyone remember how hard it once was to show a link between smoking and lung and throat cancer? In fact, one of the few things I took away from my statistics paper at university was how hard it was to show a definite link between the two because of all the other factors that could mitigate the results. Yet these days in the media it's so easy to link one issue to the other. My favourite is violence in video games and/or TV. People with an agenda like to claim that depicted violence makes kids more violent, never mind that it might just be that the kids were already violent due to other factors and surprise, surprise, are more inclined to partake in violent media in the first place. I pick that one because cartoon violence has been around for many years, many of them without incident, but parents being absent in providing context to that violence has grown. It's unfortunate that many news items are too short to really go into the details of these studys. They just tell you the implications, while sidelining the caveats. Anyone remember how hard it once was to show a link between smoking and lung and throat cancer? In fact, one of the few things I took away from my statistics paper at university was how hard it was to show a definite link between the two because of all the other factors that could mitigate the results.

Yet these days in the media it's so easy to link one issue to the other. My favourite is violence in video games and/or TV. People with an agenda like to claim that depicted violence makes kids more violent, never mind that it might just be that the kids were already violent due to other factors and surprise, surprise, are more inclined to partake in violent media in the first place. I pick that one because cartoon violence has been around for many years, many of them without incident, but parents being absent in providing context to that violence has grown.

It's unfortunate that many news items are too short to really go into the details of these studys. They just tell you the implications, while sidelining the caveats.

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