By the Numbers

Half the people ever born are living today!

Not true. The largest numbers demographers, archeologists, historians, etc. can agree to is about 15%. That, of itself, is a large number but is probably way too high. Every new discovery about civilizations and pre-history seems to uncover larger numbers of people from the past. Recent discoveries in London imply that as many as 65%-80% of the population died from the great plague therefore there were a lot more people who existed before the plague. Previous numbers for plague deaths were 33%-50%. We know from recent history that about 65%-80% of many native populations died from new strains of disease born by the Europeans so the new data from London is not out of line.

Fifteen percent of the population is gay!

Not true. That number goes back to the first well known sex researcher, Dr. Kinsey who reported that his initial figures indicated that 15% of his survey reported some homosexual experience during their life.  If someone reported that they had had one "experimental" homosexual encounter, of whatever sort, then they were in the 15% even if the rest of their life followed a heterosexual line.  Put another way, a lot of people experiment when they are young and do things that are not part of the rest of their lives e.g. many homosexuals experiment with heterosexuality and decide it's not for them.

What is the percent? Probably in the 2%-5% range but this is an area where data collection tends to be unreliable. My impression is that the number is clearly less than one in 6 or 7 people (the 15% range).

Taking the pill increase your chances of breast cancer!

True, but not taking it increases your chances of dying long before you might get cancer.  Pregnancy and childbirth can be fatal. The death toll from not taking the pill is very much higher than for taking it by orders of magnitude. Childbirth is riskier but rewarding. Abortion is riskier also and unrewarding. Both increase the chances of getting cancer much more than does the pill. Am I advocating the pill? Not per se. I always advocate that people have the children they want and no more. If they want to avoid having children (for many valid reasons) the pill is one of the surest and safest ways to do it.

The average person…..!

Almost any statement about averages is misleading if not untrue. In the last presidential election the "average" voter didn't care who got elected, right? The average weather in California is moderate. Just average up the droughts, wildfires, deluges, heat waves, cold spells and you get our average weather. Average, as commonly used means very little. The median is more meaningful but not well understood.

There is no such thing as a traditional family!

The discussion about the traditional family is interesting. I'll offer same statistics. There are about 6-7 billion people in the world. As near as we can tell, 100% of them began with a mother and a father. A grouping of mother, father and children appears to be the (traditional) family grouping implied from this data. If my data is incorrect, please enlighten me.

What is my point?

If you are not well versed in statistics, be very leery of data presented as arguments to change the law and or our social structure. Be particularly distrustful of data from experts. The Disraeli quote "lies, damned lies, and statistics" has much more than a grain of truth in it.

The sure sign that statistics are phony is when they support a "crisis du jour" that needs laws, a bureaucracy and public spending. A recent example is the patient "bill of rights" better expressed as more work for trial lawyers (a leading source of contributions to the Democratic party right behind teachers and their unions). The bill of rights is needed because of the failure of the evil HMOs (a program proposed by that left wing extremist, Teddy Kennedy). It's all part of a grand plan for is a final solution to the problem, a single national HMO, A.K.A. socialized medicine.