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Statistics play an important role in shaping the nation's thinking about key social issues but all too often those statistics are dead wrong, according to University of Delaware professor Joel Best, who chairs the sociology and criminal justice department.
Frequently, Best writes in his new book "Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians and Activists" published recently by the University of California Press, statistical information is misused by people and organizations interested in shaping the national policy debate to their own ends.
In his introduction to the book, Best said his interest in the manipulation of statistics was spurred by a gradate student's dissertation prospectus, which attempted to grab attention by quoting a statistic that claimed "every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled."
Best decided to look carefully at the figure, which was published in a journal in 1995. He did the math and found that if only one child had been killed by gunfire in 1950, an annual doubling would have brought the figure to 32,768 by 1965, to 1 million in 1970, to 1 billion in 1980 and to more than 35 trillion by the date the journal was published.
Investigating further, he found the basis of the claim: a 1994 report by the Children's Defense Fund that found the number of American children killed each year by guns had doubled since 1950, not doubled each year since 1950.
Even at that, Best said the number is not a dramatic as it might first appear given that the nation's population grew about 73 percent - nearly doubling - during the period 1950 to 1994.
"Before we can decide whether twice as many deaths indicates that things are getting worse," he writes, "we'd have to know more." For instance, who maintains statistics concerning gunshot deaths, what is the definition of child given that some of the fund's statistics include everyone under age 25, and does the phrase "killed by guns" include suicides and accidents in addition to homicides?
The lesson should be clear, Best says: "Bad statistics live on; they take on lives of their own."
"Damned Lies and Statistics" is designed to help readers think critically about social statistics presented as fact, and Best centers his work on a wide assortment of contemporary issues including abortion, cyberporn, homelessness, teen suicide and the U.S. census.
In the book, Best outlines how and why flawed statistics emerge, spread and reach the public consciousness in debates over public policy. He also offers recommendations on how to detect statistics that have been misrepresented and how to make sense out of the "stat wars" that break out among experts for the various sides of issues.
The book, which was featured in the May 4 "Chronicle of Higher Education Review," has received widespread critical acclaim.
"Joel Best is at it again," Patricia Adler, author of "Peer Power," wrote. "In 'Damned Lies and Statistics,' he shows how statistics are manipulated, mismanaged, misrepresented and massaged by officials and other powerful groups to promote their agendas. He is a master at examining taken-for-granted 'facts' and debunking them through careful sociological scrutiny."
"Best is our leading authority on social problems today," wrote Jonathan B. Imber, editor-in-chief of "Society."
"His detective work in exposing the spurious use of statistics is essential to constructive social science," Imber wrote.
Best holds master's degrees from the University of Minnesota and the University of California at Berkeley and a doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley. He taught at Concordia College in Minnesota, California State University at Fresno and Southern Illinois University before joining the University of Delaware faculty in September 1999.
He is also the author of "Random Violence" (1999, University of California Press).
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Contact: Neil Thomas (302) 831-6408; [email protected]
June 14, 2001
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