Category Archives: Politics

Mathematical Malpractice Watch: Rape Statistics

The Akin controversy has brought a lot of ugliness to light. I’ll push aside the broader political issues, which I’ve discussed on the other blog. Instead, I want to focus on a particular piece of nonsense from one of the more influential pro-Life figures, who has tried to argue that rape pregnancies are very rare.

You would think this would be straight forward. You could, for example, find rape victims and ask them if they got pregnant. And indeed, a study estimated that about 5% of rapes end in pregnancy and 32,000 fetuses are conceived in rape every year. You could also ask women getting abortions if they were raped. And indeed, Guttmacher did this and produced a lower estimate of about 10,000 or so. There is no real incentive, at this point, for women to lie about how they got pregnant. Or there are just as many reasons for them lie either way since many women are tragically ashamed of having been raped. But there is no a priori reason to suspect that either number is greatly inflated.

(The Guttmacher number seems a little better since the numbers in the former study would indicate about 640,000 rapes a year or three times what the FBI and NCVS conclude, even including the under-reporting factor. The difference is likely that Guttmacher is recent and Holmes was published in 1996, shortly after crime rates peaked. Rape rates have plunged in the last 16 years and are down about 85% over the last 30.)

But plain facts aren’t enough for some people, so John Wilke, “M. D.” has come up with a bizarre rape equivalent of the Drake equation to try to figure out how many rape babies are conceived every year and come up with a vanishingly small number.

It’s fairly easy to tear apart.

Continue reading Mathematical Malpractice Watch: Rape Statistics

Weekend Linkorama

I’m doing more long-form posting of links I care to comment on. But here’s a few I don’t have time for.

  • Man, do I love time lapse video
  • .

  • I haven’t found a good handle on the contention that Mitt Romney’s CEO background is actually a minus. I really think the CEO thing is irrelevant. What concerns me more is his lading up his staff with former Bush people.
  • I’m a little dubious of the contention that trash correlates with economic health. The graph smacks to me of a manipulated stat (it measure the derivative not the absolute). And our push on durability and recycling could confused it. Really, it looks, to me, more like you have one big correlated dip in both stats that’s driving the supposed correlation. The collapse of 2008 was unique. I’m not sure it’s a trend.
  • Tuesday Linkorama

  • Starry Night … in dominoes.
  • A great interview with the Skeptical Environmentalist.
  • The DEA can’t justify it’s own War on Drugs.
  • This post, on whether kids should hate their parents, deserves a feature-length post from me. Suffice it to say that I, uh, split he baby on this one. I’m my daughter’s friend when I can be but if she doesn’t hate me once a week, I’m not doing my job.
  • Tuesday Linkorama

  • All right, here’s the thing about the “study” that Congressional speaking patterns have gotten simpler. Notice that from ’96 to ’06, the speaking grade level was higher and especially high among Republicans. How come we didn’t read all these articles about what intelligent speakers the Republicas were? It did’t fit the narrative, that’s why.
  • I love me new web browsers, but calling it Axis? Is it being tested in Poland and China?
  • Looks like the mainstream media has discovered Chaga’s Disease. I remember my first visit to Campanas, when they tried to scare the new guy with stories about Venchukas.
  • How a story goes viral. Personally, I find the story amusing and cute.
  • A fascinating breakdown of where your airfare goes.
  • UK Linkorama

  • The rise of resistant diseases is one of the biggest reasons I fear socialized medicine. Innovation is critical to the next century and I am afraid that price controls will kill it.
  • Amazing pictures of the Kowloon City.
  • This is why I read Joe Posnanski religiously. A post about nothing. And it’s beautiful.
  • I was going to write an article taking apart Buzz Blowhard Bissinger on the subject of college football. Now I don’t have to.
  • A study says women value sleep more than sex. This is unsurprising although the reasons are a bit different than what they think. It’s pure economics. For women, sex is available (mostly) when they want it so sleep takes priority. For men, you have to get it when you can, so everything else is secondary. I think Seinfeld did an episode on this, no?
  • Tuesday Linkorama

  • So my daughter has taken to watching My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic lately. I’m fine with it, since the show is a lot more sophisticated than the stuff she’s liked before. It’s also far less abrasive and ugly than most of the animation that dominates morning TV. Still, I do not understand the brony phenomenon. Really?
  • The best magazine articles ever?
  • The amazing thing about environmental fear-mongers it that they are never discredited by being totally and completely wrong. Thankfully, a handful will own up to it.
  • This story, about potentially innocent men not being informed about flaws in the evidence against them, is appalling and should be bigger. Where the anti-big-government types when it comes to getting innocent people out of jail?
  • The thing that strikes me about this photo essay about the poorest place in America is how relative poverty is. I’m not saying they are not poor or are facing few prospects. I am saying that if you saw the same thing in much of the world, you’d think you were looking at the richest part of the country.
  • The “Liberal” Me

    Am I a liberal? Have I become one?

    That may seem like a ridiculous question to the three people who read this blog and are, on balance, to the left of me. But it’s been on my mind a bit lately. I am constantly accused of being a RINO or an out-and-out liberal on conservative sites. Friends and family often describe me as “so liberal”. And every time Obama screws up (about once a week), I get a message or an e-mail or a comment asking if I’m happy that I voted for him (which I didn’t; I voted for Barr). The current GOP primary race — in which none of the candidates really appeal to me — has only exacerbated this since I spend most of my time pointing out why each of the candidates is a terrible choice.

    Thinking about it for a while, however, there may be something to the criticism. There are a handful of issues on which I’ve moved “left” in the last decade or so. But I do not see these as some sudden wellspring of liberalism. They are my fundamental conservatism and libertarianism refined. As I become more aware of the complexity and debate over certain issues, I find my libertarian/conservative philosophy leading me to views that I consider to be fundamentally conservative, but are no longer considered dogma by the GOP, least of all their collection of media dog washers.

    Continue reading The “Liberal” Me

    Rocket Man Linkorama

  • A tour of ancient Rome.
  • I’ve commented enough on the Sandra Fluke business at the other site and on Twitter. But here’s one last piece on the lack of outrage when conservative women are smeared — sometimes by supposed feminists.
  • These ads for a symphony are startlingly beautiful. I love modern photography.
  • A little profile of one of the more important First Amendment defenders out there.
  • And now … the least helpful review on Amazon.
  • And 100 reasons not to go to grad school.
  • My wife says she likes to exercise every day, but I don’t believe her.
  • Thursday Linkorama

  • I agree that most of these words need to die. Mancave, especially.
  • God rest the real heroes of WW2.
  • Fricking Australia, man.
  • Fascinating, if somewhat tedious evolution of the Eroica symphony.
  • Why Putin won the election.
  • Amazing before and after photos from the collapse of communism. You will rarely see the failure of that economic “system” so well demonstrated.
  • A nice story about the newest woman to join Forbes list of billionaires.
  • Aussie Linkorama

    A linkorama as I board a plane:

  • This report on how Apple products are made seems to answer its own question. The reason iphones are not made in this country is that Americans have better options than working 12 hour days and living in company-owned dormitories.
  • Fortunately, the faction of the GOP questioning whether gays should adopt is small. Unfortunately, they are engaged in extremely bad policy. Every piece of research available shows that gays make fine parents. They don’t even turn their kids gay.
  • Mind. Blown.
  • I’m unsurprised by the latest CBO study that shows that federal employees are better paid than private peers (especially when you factor in benefits) and that that advantage tapers with education level.
  • New research casts some light on the Little Ice Age. As I’ve said, massive climate changes happen for a reason.
  • Monday Linkorama

  • Whooping cough is making a comeback. Oh joy! Thanks, anti-vaxxers.
  • The obesity rate has leveled off. Not that I expect the Nanny Staters to admit this. I suspect we’ve simply reached our natural maximum.
  • The CDC needs to stay out of social engineering. They seem to keep finding was to make problems seems much worse than they actually are.
  • I am just so glad to see the company behind those creepy King ads is down for the count. Let’s get rid of all the ad agencies.