From: vanetten@unix.cie.rpi.edu (John S. Van Etten)
Subject: Re: HUNTING NEWS
Organization: CIE, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 04:27:18 GMT

Ted Robinson writes:

>In article <tl1x4a@rpi.edu>, vanetten@unix.cie.rpi.edu (John S. Van Etten) 
>writes:
>> Just so you kiddies know, the National Shooting Foundation *didn't*
>> claim that "bathing is twice as dangerous as hunting."  They claimed
>> that a person was twice as likely to die by drowning in a bathtub than
>> by being killed in a hunting accident.   
> 
>John - you're splitting hairs.

No, if I were splitting hairs, I'd have pointed out that there are
really 17 million licensed hunters in the US (vs. 16 million as
cited). ;-)  I'm merely on a quest for the truth.  Pity that all of us
aren't so inclined. :-(


> Whatever the precise wording, the (attempted) 
>implication of the NSF is clear, and they did so using lousy statistics. 
>Using the same logic one could say "a person is far more likely to die by 
>drowning in a bathtub than by being blown up in the Space Shuttle".

Please note that this is quite true. :-)  Not that I care whether or
not the NSF was using the "statistics" to present hunting in the best
light.  The point is the NSF did not *lie* while making their
assertion.


> The 
>article posted by Ferrell tried to normalize the numbers by accounting for 
>two things:
> 
>1. The ratio of bathers to hunters is about 16. This factor is clearly 
>missing in the NSF approach and needs to be added in.

If this were all that had been done, fine.  I would have nothing to
complain about and the numbers that were posted would have indeed been
"statistics" and not *lies*.


>2. The ratio bathing attempts/bather:hunting attempts/ hunter is about 36:1. 
>This also needs to be factored in. Doing these adjustments yields a measure 
>of danger in terms of deaths per attempt. 

Sorry.  Do you realize that the 10 days/person that the average hunter
spends in the woods which Ferrell quoted is *total* time and in no way
represents *only* 10 seperate excursions?  That's why these stats
which were posted stink so bad.  They are lies.  And you folk *believe*
them.


>A different approach is to measure it in terms of death per time spent on the 
>activity.

Which would have been fine as well.  But you can't compare total time
hunting with the number of incidents bathing because that's bullsh--
and you know it.  Why are you AR folk so afraid to admit that the
publishers of _Animal's Agenda_ lied to you?


> It's arguable which is a better metric of "danger", and the AR side 
>chose the approach which sounds best to their ears, but note that the NSF 
>seems to have used neither. You've castigated AR folks for abusing 
>statistics, while overlooking the fact that the NSF folk abused them even 
>more.

Huh?  Since when is posting raw data an "abuse" of statistics?  And
why should I not castigate AR folk for lying?  (Note: "use" of
statistics to me means chosing either the apples vs. apples or oranges
vs.  oranges depending on which presents the data in a better light
for your cause -- the apples vs. oranges garbage is blatant lying and
nothing more.)


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"--
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