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So, do households with more than one pool have more drownings than households with only one pool? This comparison is ridiculous. It's the numboer of children that you need to worry about, not the number of guns or the number of pools. The point is to compare houlseholds with children, where gun or pool is owned.

'walking on water, reading writing and revolution' by derrick jensen

Quote:

Originally Posted by donrhummy

Well, I think it's a fascinating book but I wouldn't say "cold, hard light" of mathematics. They have some misuse of statistics in there. For example, in looking at whether guns or pools are more dangerous to kids, they looked at the number of deaths for young children in households with pools versus the deaths against the TOTAL number of guns. The problem with that, of course, is it does not take into account the fact that houses with a pool are probably near 100% likely to have ONE pool while homes with a gun are probably VERY likely to have more than 1 gun. I don't have the actual number but I'd be VERY surprised if, of all households with at least 1 gun, the average was closer to 1 than 2. Regardless, they never properly examine that issue (among others).

They have some very interesting ideas of what to look at, just, it wouldn't stand up to academic scrutiny (which IS important for this book)

I understand what you are saying, but of course, as another poster already pointed out, these things are debatable :D

It is just thought it was nice to see social problems viewed in a way that reduces the amount of prejudice (from both sides) as much as possible. You can argue about the methods and results later, but it is the idea of looking at the real numbers that fascinated me. You can't find a solution without knowing what the real problem is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roody

The point is to compare houlseholds with children, where gun or pool is owned.

EXACTLY! That's what their statistics did NOT do. They did not look at how many children died (by a gun) in households with guns. Rather they looked at how many children had died (by gun) per the total number of guns in the country! You just re-"proved" my point.

Check out my recommended list of bike books on my Geocities Web site Maintenance section in the links below.

The Dancing Chain, The Age of Fighting Sail, The Story of the War of 1812, Sandstorms, Day and nights in Arabia, Jawbone: Sunset on the Lone Pine, The Pirate Coast

Quote:

Originally Posted by donrhummy

Given that number, it definitely changes the results in Freakonomics.

As my mother used to say, "There are lies, d*mned lies... and statistics".

There was a post here last week about James Howard Kunstler (although it now seems to be missing...?), so I picked up a copy of "The Long Emergency" where he projects what will happen to society when peak oil and climate change meet head on. I find his really long term predictions a bit over-the-top, but his analysis of recent events seems pretty accurate. And it's a really entertaining read.

Dont' know if this link will work, but ther's a long excerpt at Google books http://books.google.com/books?vid=IS...#PRA2-PA100,M1

Much longer than the Amazone excerpts.

Has anyone looked at book.google.com? There's a lot of material out there.