I will - at my great peril! - offer a comparison to confirm your assertions about lack of willingness to consider history.
My great peril arises in that I will mention the issue of climate change. Not that I deny it is changing, you understand - obligatory disclaimer! - but that context is important.
First off, we are constantly being told that we getting to warmer and warmer temperatures and it does seem so to me. Having said that, there is little context to that claim; there is no consideration to the scare in the 1970s and 1980s about global cooling (including arguments by the saints who now argue "in favor" of the concept of global warming!). There is no consideration in those current comments about what happened as recently as, oh, the 1960s, the 1970s, etc. There is no consideration about the medieval warm period when talking about "highest ever" or the "little ice age," what, about four hundred odd years ago and so forth.
So, my point is that the current "analysis" is not at all analytical. I expect that climate IS changing; after all, it always does change. The real issue is much more complicated than the headlines make it and I, therefore, accept in full your thesis. And, just for the record, perhaps mankind is responsible, etc.... and then, what do the various data truly tell us? The headlines certainly don't care.
Well said! Excellent article. Hyperbole abounds in today’s media. There seems to be a lack of critical thinking skills. A good reminder of the importance of perspective.
Unfortunately, Dan, you failed to lead off with the quote, sort-of-from Samuel Langhorne Clemens:
"'There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Of course, with that omission (intentional?) your reader is likely less apt to realize what appears to be a reason for so much use of ‘statistics’ in your writings, because, calling again on a quote from the guy more commonly known as Mark Twain:
"Statistics is the art of never having to say you're wrong."
In closing my comment, this reader fully realizes that your stories are simply expressing your opinions, and as you wrote in a Vancouver Sun Op-Ed, way back in 2008 … your quote:
“On any given day of the week, readers send e-mails in response to what I have written. Some say nice things. Others are not so happy. But in almost every case, my correspondents feel it important to tell me that they do, or do not, agree with me. So let me say collectively to those of you who write: I don't care.”
Excellent as always. To which I respectfully add two other factors at work here as well. Hindsight bias and fun with charts.
As you know, hindsight bias is the tendency to unconsciously adjust our memory of a previous opinion to overstate our predictive abilities and construct a sense of inevitability and foreseeability. Respectively “I said it would happen”, “It had to happen” and “I knew it would happen”. (I’m paraphrasing Neal J. Roese and Kathleen D. Vohs Hindsight Bias, Roese and Vohs Perspectives on Psychological Science vol 7, issue 5 .)
I’m no expert but it’s akin to its more famous cousin confirmation bias already referred to a comment. Both give us a sense of comfort and control. Together they account for the appeal of what you call shoddy history or its shoddy treatment as a library to be plundered rather than studied.
Fun with tables, is something I think you may have already written about. I’m sure I haven’t because I fall prey to it all the time. The first chart, showing the “spike” in violent crime is not only selectively brief, as you note, but also misleadingly scaled, in the sense that it doesn’t have one and appears to show nearly a doubling of violent crime.. The second chart shows the spike was around 17 more violent crimes per 100,000 from 2019 to 2020, or somewhere around 5%. Significant and tragic but no reason to vote for Trump.
Is not some of the challenge that these sorts of broad statements link up nicely with our expectations. There was a bit in the old Colbert Report, I think, where he noted that something was not supported completely by the facts but we still believed it because it had ‘truthiness’. It was taken as a given that children were being massively hurt by the pandemic - remote schooling producing unrecoverable loss of learning, social breakdown, loneliness, anxiety, etc. It makes sense that something so consequential to society will leave an equally large negative impact. And we have seen articles making claims based solely on how parents or teachers feel or on early and partial data. And those articles have been widely accepted and spread because it feels right. As the data is arriving now, the picture seems far more mixed and up for debate. For example, the early fears that suicide amongst teens had risen due to the pandemic seems now not to have been true.
Kind of with you until you cite Pinker, whose heaps of "data" have been so comprehensively challenged by heaps of historians. Live by pointing to the complexity of what history shows in relation to a contemporary feeling or mood, die by the complexity of what history shows.
Which means it's best not to say "Pinker proved it, it's all settled". The dispute is specifically about the data, and the dispute is specifically coming from specialists in various periods that Pinker rights about.
Read the edited collection The Darker Angels of Our Nature; a lot of detailed critique by historians on the crime data. There's other work that's not in that book, some of it cited by the authors.
Look, it's legitimate to note that many people have disputed aspects of his book from varying angles (as happens with literally every notable book). But you should also mention that a great many others have taken the opposite view. And while you seem to think this means the whole thing should be chucked, or, at a minimum, it should not be cited as demonstrating anything, I disagree pretty profoundly. And I stand by what I wrote here because even if we accept that some of his claims are disputed, and put a big question mark over them, and set them aside, there are still heaps and heaps and heaps of quite straightforward numbers that say, yes, violence levels for an ordinary person in a developed country today are relatively low.
Given the point you're raising in the overall entry, I think it would make sense for you to look at some of the challenges to Pinker's *data* coming from people with profound expertise with that data (which he doesn't have). It is sort of the basic point you're making, as I read you--that a *narrative* which sounds great in the present should be regarded skeptically against *data* which contradicts or undercuts it. Pinker's book is in my view exactly the thing you're concerned about in the entry--and it shows how attached people can get sometimes to something that makes sense to them in the present moment despite a lot of contravening evidence.
I followed the debates around the book for years. I didn't cite the data on war because I'm now quite undecided on it thanks to that debate. I wrote, in a discussion about violent crime, that there are tons of numbers in Pinker's book which will make you happy to be alive now. And there are. You know that point about medieval England? It comes from superb research conducted many years ago. I read that research and wrote about long before Pinker's book was published. I believe I even mention it in my first book.
You seem to be of that opinion that the mere fact Pinker's book has been challenged means it should be dismissed. If so, sorry, that's wrong. (Not least because it's an impossible standard. Literally every big-picture, big-idea book that attains mass popularity has been similarly challenged.) Or perhaps you are of the opinion that one must wholly accept everything Pinker wrote or wholly reject it. That, too, is wrong. (Note that I said nothing about his larger thesis, which is the narrative you allude to, I presume.) Or perhaps you are of the opinion that if Pinker's book was challenged, and you find the challenges persuasive, others can only conclude as you have. But that, too, would be wrong.
So, sure, it's good to note Pinker's book is the subject of much criticism (as well as support from a good many "people with profound expertise"). Flagging those sources may be helpful for others, too. Thanks. But, sorry, I don't share your conclusions and I think what I wrote is not only defensible, it's not even modestly controversial.
Perhaps I am convinced that you have not read the many and detailed challenges to the crime data, at any rate. Which means I think you should be more tentative about your certainty, in *precisely the way you otherwise model in this entry*. If I am certain of one thing about Pinker, it is that he is cavalier about the difficulty of his arguments in evidentiary terms, which I think is a bad look for someone who is not a specialist AND someone who wants to drape the mantle of 'science' about his shoulders. If big-picture, big-idea books get challenges, it is frequently because their authors fall back on that kind of brash immodesty about their conclusions when experts observe, often quite carefully and sympathetically, that there are non-trivial issues with how they have read the data and thus how they form their conclusions. The burden of big-picturism should precisely be modesty about the strength of the argument they can support, but the temperament of big-picture authors is frequently diametrically at odds with that.
perhaps those who write about comparisons are not old enough to have had experiences like previous generations. I can still remember my anxieties, and have discussions about and compare them with those of my children. It helps putting some perspective to the headlines. Thanks for the analysis.
Thank you, Sir.
I will - at my great peril! - offer a comparison to confirm your assertions about lack of willingness to consider history.
My great peril arises in that I will mention the issue of climate change. Not that I deny it is changing, you understand - obligatory disclaimer! - but that context is important.
First off, we are constantly being told that we getting to warmer and warmer temperatures and it does seem so to me. Having said that, there is little context to that claim; there is no consideration to the scare in the 1970s and 1980s about global cooling (including arguments by the saints who now argue "in favor" of the concept of global warming!). There is no consideration in those current comments about what happened as recently as, oh, the 1960s, the 1970s, etc. There is no consideration about the medieval warm period when talking about "highest ever" or the "little ice age," what, about four hundred odd years ago and so forth.
So, my point is that the current "analysis" is not at all analytical. I expect that climate IS changing; after all, it always does change. The real issue is much more complicated than the headlines make it and I, therefore, accept in full your thesis. And, just for the record, perhaps mankind is responsible, etc.... and then, what do the various data truly tell us? The headlines certainly don't care.
Well said! Excellent article. Hyperbole abounds in today’s media. There seems to be a lack of critical thinking skills. A good reminder of the importance of perspective.
Excellent! Perspective is so important.
As if Trump was the only politician ever to overstate his case- or did he overstate it? Perhaps you overstated the case against him?
Compelling. Thank you.
Unfortunately, Dan, you failed to lead off with the quote, sort-of-from Samuel Langhorne Clemens:
"'There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Of course, with that omission (intentional?) your reader is likely less apt to realize what appears to be a reason for so much use of ‘statistics’ in your writings, because, calling again on a quote from the guy more commonly known as Mark Twain:
"Statistics is the art of never having to say you're wrong."
In closing my comment, this reader fully realizes that your stories are simply expressing your opinions, and as you wrote in a Vancouver Sun Op-Ed, way back in 2008 … your quote:
“On any given day of the week, readers send e-mails in response to what I have written. Some say nice things. Others are not so happy. But in almost every case, my correspondents feel it important to tell me that they do, or do not, agree with me. So let me say collectively to those of you who write: I don't care.”
Excellent as always. To which I respectfully add two other factors at work here as well. Hindsight bias and fun with charts.
As you know, hindsight bias is the tendency to unconsciously adjust our memory of a previous opinion to overstate our predictive abilities and construct a sense of inevitability and foreseeability. Respectively “I said it would happen”, “It had to happen” and “I knew it would happen”. (I’m paraphrasing Neal J. Roese and Kathleen D. Vohs Hindsight Bias, Roese and Vohs Perspectives on Psychological Science vol 7, issue 5 .)
I’m no expert but it’s akin to its more famous cousin confirmation bias already referred to a comment. Both give us a sense of comfort and control. Together they account for the appeal of what you call shoddy history or its shoddy treatment as a library to be plundered rather than studied.
Fun with tables, is something I think you may have already written about. I’m sure I haven’t because I fall prey to it all the time. The first chart, showing the “spike” in violent crime is not only selectively brief, as you note, but also misleadingly scaled, in the sense that it doesn’t have one and appears to show nearly a doubling of violent crime.. The second chart shows the spike was around 17 more violent crimes per 100,000 from 2019 to 2020, or somewhere around 5%. Significant and tragic but no reason to vote for Trump.
Is not some of the challenge that these sorts of broad statements link up nicely with our expectations. There was a bit in the old Colbert Report, I think, where he noted that something was not supported completely by the facts but we still believed it because it had ‘truthiness’. It was taken as a given that children were being massively hurt by the pandemic - remote schooling producing unrecoverable loss of learning, social breakdown, loneliness, anxiety, etc. It makes sense that something so consequential to society will leave an equally large negative impact. And we have seen articles making claims based solely on how parents or teachers feel or on early and partial data. And those articles have been widely accepted and spread because it feels right. As the data is arriving now, the picture seems far more mixed and up for debate. For example, the early fears that suicide amongst teens had risen due to the pandemic seems now not to have been true.
Kind of with you until you cite Pinker, whose heaps of "data" have been so comprehensively challenged by heaps of historians. Live by pointing to the complexity of what history shows in relation to a contemporary feeling or mood, die by the complexity of what history shows.
Sorry, friend, the crime data is solid. What is in dispute, as far as I know, is the war data.
Also, it is, last time I checked, a legitimate dispute among academics, with some lined up on either side of the divide.
Which means it's best not to say "Pinker proved it, it's all settled". The dispute is specifically about the data, and the dispute is specifically coming from specialists in various periods that Pinker rights about.
Read the edited collection The Darker Angels of Our Nature; a lot of detailed critique by historians on the crime data. There's other work that's not in that book, some of it cited by the authors.
Look, it's legitimate to note that many people have disputed aspects of his book from varying angles (as happens with literally every notable book). But you should also mention that a great many others have taken the opposite view. And while you seem to think this means the whole thing should be chucked, or, at a minimum, it should not be cited as demonstrating anything, I disagree pretty profoundly. And I stand by what I wrote here because even if we accept that some of his claims are disputed, and put a big question mark over them, and set them aside, there are still heaps and heaps and heaps of quite straightforward numbers that say, yes, violence levels for an ordinary person in a developed country today are relatively low.
Given the point you're raising in the overall entry, I think it would make sense for you to look at some of the challenges to Pinker's *data* coming from people with profound expertise with that data (which he doesn't have). It is sort of the basic point you're making, as I read you--that a *narrative* which sounds great in the present should be regarded skeptically against *data* which contradicts or undercuts it. Pinker's book is in my view exactly the thing you're concerned about in the entry--and it shows how attached people can get sometimes to something that makes sense to them in the present moment despite a lot of contravening evidence.
I followed the debates around the book for years. I didn't cite the data on war because I'm now quite undecided on it thanks to that debate. I wrote, in a discussion about violent crime, that there are tons of numbers in Pinker's book which will make you happy to be alive now. And there are. You know that point about medieval England? It comes from superb research conducted many years ago. I read that research and wrote about long before Pinker's book was published. I believe I even mention it in my first book.
You seem to be of that opinion that the mere fact Pinker's book has been challenged means it should be dismissed. If so, sorry, that's wrong. (Not least because it's an impossible standard. Literally every big-picture, big-idea book that attains mass popularity has been similarly challenged.) Or perhaps you are of the opinion that one must wholly accept everything Pinker wrote or wholly reject it. That, too, is wrong. (Note that I said nothing about his larger thesis, which is the narrative you allude to, I presume.) Or perhaps you are of the opinion that if Pinker's book was challenged, and you find the challenges persuasive, others can only conclude as you have. But that, too, would be wrong.
So, sure, it's good to note Pinker's book is the subject of much criticism (as well as support from a good many "people with profound expertise"). Flagging those sources may be helpful for others, too. Thanks. But, sorry, I don't share your conclusions and I think what I wrote is not only defensible, it's not even modestly controversial.
Perhaps I am convinced that you have not read the many and detailed challenges to the crime data, at any rate. Which means I think you should be more tentative about your certainty, in *precisely the way you otherwise model in this entry*. If I am certain of one thing about Pinker, it is that he is cavalier about the difficulty of his arguments in evidentiary terms, which I think is a bad look for someone who is not a specialist AND someone who wants to drape the mantle of 'science' about his shoulders. If big-picture, big-idea books get challenges, it is frequently because their authors fall back on that kind of brash immodesty about their conclusions when experts observe, often quite carefully and sympathetically, that there are non-trivial issues with how they have read the data and thus how they form their conclusions. The burden of big-picturism should precisely be modesty about the strength of the argument they can support, but the temperament of big-picture authors is frequently diametrically at odds with that.
perhaps those who write about comparisons are not old enough to have had experiences like previous generations. I can still remember my anxieties, and have discussions about and compare them with those of my children. It helps putting some perspective to the headlines. Thanks for the analysis.