Damned Lies and Statistics

YOU’VE HEARD THE NUMBERS — 10% OF AMERICAN MEN ARE GAY, 2.7 million children are abused, one in eight women develop breast cancer. Politicians, activists, fund raisers, scientists and, yes, magazine journalists routinely unload such staggering statistics on a trusting public. The numbers are presented as though they carry all the weight of scientific truth. Don’t believe it.

The fact is, much of today’s political and social agenda is built around flagrantly flimsy figures. Statistics on crime, poverty, homelessness, joblessness, drug abuse, toxic hazards, sexual harassment — indeed, any matter concerning sex — are notoriously suspect.

Sometimes erroneous numbers are used innocently; they’re the best available figures though everyone knows they’re guesstimates. Kinsey’s were the only statistics on sex for years. No one in America really has a clue as to the size of the illicit drug trade, though multibillion-dollar figures are commonly tossed around. Mitch Snyder, the late activist for the homeless, once admitted his figures on people without shelter were essentially meaningless. “We have tried to satisfy your gnawing curiosity for a number,” he told a congressional hearing, “because we are Americans with Western little minds that have to quantify everything in sight, whether we can or not.”

But too often exaggerated figures are used deliberately to mislead, raise money or advance an agenda. “Many statistics are generated by people who have a vested interest,” notes journalist Cynthia Crossen, who is writing a book on how numbers are manipulated. The American Cancer Society has said 1 in 8 or 9 U.S. women will develop breast cancer, though the frightening statistic is based on women having an unrealistically long life-span. Environmental organizations tend to present the most alarming scenarios to pump up the threat of global warming. Hard-line politicians and gun lobbyists frequently cite figures creating the impression that the country is in the midst of an unprecedented crime wave, and yet homicides and other crimes seem to be declining, according to law-enforcement agencies.

Child advocates meanwhile insist 2.7 million youngsters are suffering grievous abuse. But that statistic reflects total reports of suspected mistreatment, not substantiated individual cases, warns Douglas Besharov, former director of the U.S. National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. Moreover, the figure includes not only instances of physical or sexual assault and starvation — as the public commonly assumes — but also so-called educational neglect and poor emotional nurturing. Besharov whittles the figure on child abuse to 420,000, though some experts say that’s too low.

Since activists and fund raisers have a marked preference for large figures, Americans might be tempted to lop off some digits whenever they’re lobbed a statistic. Alas, such a simple solution doesn’t work when it comes to official numbers. Governmental authorities misleadingly tout both high and low statistics.

This is particularly true when it comes to the economy. Department of Labor figures on jobs created are boosted by the inclusion of part-time positions. Conversely, the agency’s regular tallies of the jobless include so-called discouraged workers, people who have given up looking for a job because they don’t think they’ll find one. Clinton drew embarrassed laughs from members of Congress last February when he laid out his economic plan and vowed to use Congress’s own figures on the deficit. “Let’s at least argue about the same set of numbers so the American people will think we’re shooting straight with them,” he declared. That should be the aim with all statistics.