The 35 trillion murdered children statistics

Years of debating on online discussion forums familiarised me with some of the more popular fallacies associated with various ideologies (often because others were quick to point them out when I made them myself). In online debates between diverse participants if someone makes a claim another will demand evidence, or supply counter evidence. Thus I've learned that Mein Kampf is not banned in 'the West', the world's poorer countries for the most part aren't getting poorer, and crime rates in developed countries aren't spiralling out of control. With my bullshit detector upgraded thus, I am quicker to sense nonsensical claims and hopefully less likely now to make them myself. (Feel free to point them out, when I do, however.)

At its most simple, if I hear something that sounds really shocking and disgraceful, little alarm bells ring and I quickly double-check to see if it is indeed true. If someone says the EU health and safety regulators are forcing tightrope walkers to wear hard hats, have a quick check and expose the nonsense for what it is.

I'm studying statistics for social science now so I'm getting a bit more aware of these kinds of myths in statistics, and of the mistakes I've made in interpreting statistics in the past too. My errors and the mad claims I've come across online pale, however, by comparison with this wonderful example in Joel Best's Damned Lies and Statistics; Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists. Best was reading a dissertation prospectus by a student who was proposing a Ph.D. research project and read this:

'Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled.'

Clearly Best's bullshit detector starting jingling like mad:

I assumed the Student had made an error in copying it. I went to the library and looked up the article the Student had cited. There, in the journal's 1995 volume, was exactly the same sentence: 'Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled.'

This quotation is my nomination for a dubious distinction: I think it may be the worst - that is, the most inaccurate - social statistic ever.

Best explains the madness of this claim by suggesting we imagine that in 1950 only one child was shot. In 1951 there would be double: two children. 1952: four children shot.

1953: 8
1954: 16
1955: 32
1956: 64
1957: 128
1958: 256
1959: 512
1960: 1,024
1961: 2,048
1962: 4,096
1963: 8,192
1964: 16,384
1965: 32,768 (Best writes: 'in 1965 the FBI identified only 9,960 criminal homicides in the entire country, including adult as well as child victims'.
1966: 65,536
1967: 131,072
1968: 262,144
1969: 524,288
1970: 1,048,576
1971: 2,097,152
1972: 4,194,304
1973: 8,388,608
1974: 16,777,216
1975: 33,554,432
1976: 67,108,864
1977: 134,217,728
1978: 268,435,456
1979: 536,870,912
1980: 1,073,741,824
1981: 2,147,836,648
1982: 4,294,967,296
1983: 8,589,934,592 ('about twice the Earth's population at the time'.)

Another milestone would have been passed in 1987, when the number of gunned-down American children (137 billion) would have surpassed the best estimates for the total human population through history (110 billion). By 1995, when the article was published, the annual number of victims would have been over 35 trillion...

Best was intrigued that a journal was claiming that more children were shot in the United States in the 1980s than all the humans who had ever lived, so he contacted the author who pointed to the original source, from the Children's Defense Fund which wrote in 1994: 'The number of American children killed each year by guns has doubled since 1950.' Doubled since 1950, not doubled every year since 1950!

Probing a little deeper, Best realised:

This is not quite as dramatic an increase as it might seem. Remember that the U.S. population also rose throughout this period; in fact, it grew about 73 percent - or nearly double. Therefore, we might expect all sorts of things - including the number of child gunshot deaths - to increase, to nearly double just because the population grew. Before we can decide whether twice as many deaths indicates that things are getting worse, we'd have to know more.

This observation fits in Best's introduction so I'm looking forward to reading the rest. Already in class my lecturer has pointed out common errors which I'm guilty of, some of them on this blog, sorry! I'm interested in using statistics to understand how societies work and I do not accept the claim I occasionally encounter that statistics are so easily manipulated that they 'can say anything'. We simply need the skills to tell apart the nonsense from the truth, the little alarm bells that chimed in Joel Best's mind when he realised his student was claiming that the entire global population was shot dead in 1982. Readers who agree might like this 16-page guide for journalists on using statistics, written by the British Straight Statistics team.