The Numbers Game

We are bombarded by numbers. Every day, some statistic or poll comes out to tell us how much the economy grew within the last minute or how much the opinion of Obama has fallen with single Asian cat-owners above 65.

With the election coming up, people like me are going to be following lots of numbers; going crazy when we see that a candidate lost ground in Ohio or gained in Florida.

I don’t like when numbers are used to distort, deceive. When politicians and pundits give numbers with no context, think numbers are facts in themselves, or just outright give incorrect information, it drives me up a wall. Here are some examples of numbers being misused and misrepresented.

“We spend more money per kilowatt for wind power than oil or coal!”

Whenever the debate to invest more money into wind power and cut oil subsidies comes up, we hear this argument. “The government is spending more per kilowatt on wind than oil! It’s not fair to penalize oil any further with these lopsided policies! Clearly the oil companies need more subsidies and tax breaks while we should leave wind power to its own devices!”

Notice the argument, “We spend more money per kilowatt for wind power than oil or coal!”

Look at this. Notice how little power the US produces with wind (lumped with other “renewables”) compared to oil and other fossil fuels? Well of course we spend more per kilowatt on wind. Proportionally, it makes up less energy produced. If we gave $1 Billion to wind and $ 5 billion to oil, the government would still spend more money per kilowatt on wind. Wind is a new and small technology trying to compete against old and big companies. We are trying to get it off the ground and able to compete with the entrenched competitors. Left to their own devices, wind power would never get off the ground or take too long to develop and grow.

No wonder oil company representatives like to peddle this fact.

“The rich already pay more in taxes than any other group! We don’t need to raise them, we need to cut them!”

This is like the last example. The rich, by definition, have more money than the poor and middle classes. A 10% tax rate on $1 Million will net more money than a 10% rate on $35,000. That’s simple math. Even if you tax the rich much higher, it impacts them much less. A 50% rate on someone making $50,000 feels much worse than someone making $10 Million (trust me, you can live on $5 Million comfortably). When the top 1% owns 43% of the wealth, there is a lot of money to be found! (Oh and why is it “inciting class warfare” when we point this out, but not when we give the rich tax cuts and cut services for the poor?) And when corporate wages rise much higher (23%) than lower class workers, don’t be surprised when they have more money.

“Abortion/Planned Parenthood stats”

On the Diane Rehm Show a few weeks ago, she and her guests discussed the proposed defunding of Planned Parenthood. One guest constantly gave this statistic to show that money for contraception increases abortions, “Federal funding went up 80% between 2000 and 2009. Abortions went up 60% and adoption referrals fell”

Problems with argument:

1. She never mentions how much is actually spent on contraceptives and if spending for them went up as well. Planned Parenthood offers many other programs besides contraception (and abortions) like basic healthcare, STD testing, Breast exams, etc. There are a lot of other things that require funding. This is a false “causation and correlation” argument. It is like saying I turned on my light and it started raining, therefore my light causes rain. PP received more funding for contraception and abortions increased, therefore, contraception causes abortions. It doesn't make sense. Even if she did show that money for contraception adjusted for inflation went up, it would still be a false argument because...

2. Other abortion providers have stopped offering abortions. States like North Dakota (interesting when I Google "north dakota abortion" the first hit is for an adoption service...), Virginia, and Texas are passing laws restricting abortions and who can give them. Therefore, PP would be the last place to go for women as all centers must provide them (as per their standards) and would therefore see more women coming to them to receive abortions.

3. I don’t know what adoption referrals have to do with contraception (Contraception STOPS conception, therefore, adoption is not STOPPING any births). But, here is a counterpoint. People don’t go to PP for adoption referrals as there are organizations that deal specifically with that issue, and women go to those. You don’t complain that pizza sales at a convenience store are low because people mostly go to these places for gas, tobacco, alcohol, or snacks. People usually go to places that specialize in making pizza if they want pizza (unless you need to feed a lot of people for cheap).

Oh, let us not forget that abortion rates have been falling since 1990. Why? Contraception? Sex Education? Less Stigma of being a single Mother? More intimidation? Abstinence Education? Who knows. I do know that I will not say it is one or more of those things without a little research.

Stop using numbers to manipulate and conflate data. Please just give us the facts, not distorted Bullshit (speaking of BS, Penn & Teller’s Bullshit had a good episode on this topic. I don’t usually trust libertarians, but they are very good).

 I know the point was made about 20 seconds in, but I really like this scene.