From: boucher@csl.sri.com (Peter K. Boucher)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: A Coffee-House Conversation with an Imaginary Nadja
Date: 5 Jan 93 20:47:56 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Lab, SRI International
NNTP-Posting-Host: affirmed.csl.sri.com

In article <LAMBERT.92Dec22014344@nankeen.spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au>,
lambert@spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au (Tim Lambert) writes:

|> > burglary
|> > rate
|> >                          |          /--
|> >   70 |                   |          |XX
|> >      |                   |          |XX
|> >   60 |               /--\|          |XX
|> >      |               |XX |          |XX
|> >   50 |               |XX |          |XX
|> >      | --\           |XX |          |XX
|> >   40 | XX|     /----/ XX |----\     |XX
|> >      | XX|     |XX XX XX |X XX ----/ XX
|> >   30 | XX|     |XX XX XX |X XX XX XX XX
|> >      | XX\----/ XX XX XX |X XX XX XX XX
|> >   20 | XX XX XX XX XX XX |X XX XX XX XX
|> >      --------------------|---------------------
|> >        76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86   Year
|> >                          |
|> >                          |
|> >                The year the law passed.
|>
|> In his classic book "How to Lie With Statistics" Darrell Huff notes
|> that if you want to make changes to a data set look more dramatic, a
|> useful technique is to leave off the bottom part of the graph and
|> start the scale at something other than 0.

Why am I not surprised to discover that Mr. Lambert studies "How to Lie
With Statistics?"  O.K., Tim, let's start it at zero, so that all can
see how misleading the earlier graph was:

     burglary
     rate
                              |          /--
       70 |                   |          |XX
          |                   |          |XX
       60 |               /--\|          |XX
          |               |XX |          |XX
       50 |               |XX |          |XX
          | --\           |XX |          |XX
       40 | XX|     /----/ XX |----\     |XX
          | XX|     |XX XX XX |X XX ----/ XX
       30 | XX|     |XX XX XX |X XX XX XX XX
          | XX\----/ XX XX XX |X XX XX XX XX
       20 | XX XX XX XX XX XX |X XX XX XX XX
          | XX XX XX XX XX XX |X XX XX XX XX
       10 | XX XX XX XX XX XX |X XX XX XX XX
          | XX XX XX XX XX XX |X XX XX XX XX
        0 --------------------|---------------------
            76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86   Year
                              |
                              |
                    The year the law passed.

Yes!  I see it now.  Of course!  Starting the graph at zero shows
that the rate was not increasing from 77-81, did not take a dip
in 82, and did not stay down from  82-85 before rising again
in 86!  **NOT**!!!

|> >TL> 41 21 22 35 | 35 35 35 29 32 70
|> >TL>
|> >TL> Let's see, a bit of a dip, then flat, then another dip, and then an
|> >TL> increase.
|>
|> > Even this would not support Lambert's claim that "Clearly the Kennesaw
|> > ordinance had no effect."  Lambert is assuming that the rate would have
|> > been flat from 79-83 without the law.  Where is his evidence for this?
|>
|> Note that this argument can be used regardless of what the actual
|> numbers are.  Even if the data looked like this
|>      ************
|>      *
|>      *
|> ******
|>      |
|>      Law

Yes, the argument could be made, but anyone with any common sense would tell
me that using your little graph to argue that "the law clearly had a
beneficial effect" is as ludicrous as your own feeble attempt to use the
numbers from my graph to argue that "Clearly the Kennesaw ordinance had no 
effect."

|> > It appears to me that, according to your own figures, the law had a marked
|> > effect.
|>
|> I assumed that you were claiming that the law had a marked effect.

Ho, Ho, Ho.  You can quote, but can you read?  I said that the evidence
you cited in support of your claim that "Clearly the Kennesaw ordinance
had no effect" APPEARS TO ME to more readily support the opposite of your
claim.  You might get farther if you try reading instead of assuming.  If
I had said "If your numbers are right, then clearly the Kennesaw ordinance
had a marked effect," you might have had a case.

So, the question remains in my mind, are you blindly dogmatic, as your
arguments suggest, and simply don't realize the flimsiness of your case?
Or, do you realize it and hope that others won't?

Keep grasping, Tim.

-- 
Peter K. Boucher
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Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns