From: vanetten@unix.cie.rpi.edu (John S. Van Etten)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: HUNTING NEWS
Date: 31 Jul 92 02:52:49 GMT
Organization: CIE, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

Ferrell S. Wheeler writes:

[erroneous statistics from _Animals Agenda_ deleted]
>John S. Van Etten writes:
>
>>     You see, very few Americans spend the *entire* d-mn day from
>> sunup to sundown *bathing*.  
>.....
>> Those stats would be meaningful *only* if the entire time people spent
>> hunting during a *full* day were equal to the time they spent bathing
>> during a day.
>
>John's quibble is a fascinating one.  He desires the statistics
>to be more properly amortized over time.  I will happily oblige.
>Let's put the bathtub encounter to be 30 minutes and a typical
>hunting excursion to be 6 hours.  Then, in terms of deaths per
>man-hour hunting is 20 times more dangerous than bathing.  If
>we halve the bathtub stay or double the hunting time, then hunting 
>becomes 10 times more dangerous.  If we do both then it becomes
>5 times more dangerous.
>
>I think the point of the original post is that NSSF's claim is
>ludicrous.  But hey, without their claim we wouldn't have had
>this joyous excursion into elementary arithmetic.

Ferrell, you've missed the point.  That doesn't surprise me, as it's
not a very nice one for the AR side to deal with, but hey, c'est la
vie.  I have never given a damn about what the *true* numbers imply,
nor do I care about the validity of the NSSF's claim (as long as they
use accurate information to make it, despite being chosen to show
their point in the best light).  Your "joyous excursion into
elementary arithmetic" was a complete waste of time, but it seems you
folk need to go off on these tangential excursions in a desperate
attempt to save face, so I'm glad you enjoyed it.
     The issue being addressed here is the credibility of the source
_Animals Agenda_ and the propaganda published in it.  When a person
looks at a rediculous set of false statistics, as were presented, the
source of such data is questioned (at least it is by the
non-believers).  How are we to then judge other information from that
same source?  Are we to believe it without question?  No, I'm afraid
not.  Let me give you an example.  Suppose we have a magazine M which
publishes the following two headlines: "President Bush is a Homosexual
Communist" and beneath it "Neamiah Judsen Smith is a Homosexual
Communist."  Now we know the first statement to be quite false.  Are
we to now assume that old Neamiah is indeed a member of the Communist
Party of America and likes men instead of women, or are we to question
the validity of the source after the point at which it publishes
erroneous info?  I'd say the latter.  AR mileage seems to vary on this
one.  How do you expect anyone to take what is published in _Animals
Agenda_ as gospel (perhaps that's the key word) after they publish
junk like those stats which you quoted?  Whether the remaining info is
true or not isn't relevant to the point that it must be held suspect.
My point in calling out the flaw was to show that posting such tripe
does more harm than good for your cause.
     As such, you may wish to consider a bit more carefully what
choice little tidbits you put before the public's eye.  While such
garbage may incite the AR diehards to chant and cheer for you, the
rest of us really aren't all that impressed by it.  In fact, most
people should be pissed off at having their intelligence insulted in
such a manner.


John

--
******************************************************************************
               John S. Van Etten     vanetten@unix.cie.rpi.edu
       Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute  1000 MIPS GaAs F-RISC Project
       --"If sand didn't irritate oysters, there would be no pearls"--