Tag: statistics

Lead, Lead?

Kevin Drum lays out a convincing case that the now-receding crime boom was primarily caused by leaded gasoline (in fact, the pattern repeats itself in country after country: as lead goes out of use in gasoline, crime goes down). Intriguingly, none of the major interest groups seem to care:

Political conservatives want to blame the social upheaval of the ‘60s for the rise in crime that followed. Police unions have reasons for crediting its decline to an increase in the number of cops. Prison guards like the idea that increased incarceration is the answer. Drug warriors want the story to be about drug policy. If the actual answer turns out to be lead poisoning, they all lose a big pillar of support for their pet issue.

Read the whole thing

Lead, Lead?

A mature society is one that can distinguish between 1) times when lawbreaking requires new, more robust laws, 2) when the appropriate conclusion is that there will just always be some level of crime, and 3) when the prohibition itself is incompatible with a free society.

Conor Friedersdorf, weighing in on SOPA and other draconian “law and order” approaches to the innerwebs. Which, of course, must be destroyed such that it may better serve our Galtian Overlords.
Sadly, we’re not even close to assessing the three points he lays out, because doing so would require us to throw our lot in with a bunch of pointy headed analysts and require looking into some “data” and “numbers” and making conclusions based on empirical reality. None of this is currently allowed in public discourse or decision making at any level. In fact, recourse to analysis and empiricism is frequently pointed to as a disqualification for office. And so the Republic crumbles.

Relative Dominance

Bill Barnwell uses a z-score to rate various golfing performances to each other. McIlroy’s 2011 US Open is up there (in the top 25), but Tiger’s 2000 destruction of Pebble Beach is as far above the second-best performance of all time as that performance (by Davis Love III) is above the twentieth. Also interesting that Niklaus’ second-place (e.g. losing) effort in the 1977 British Open still ranks as one of the greatest all-time individual performances in golf. Good on you, Jack.

Relative Dominance

It’s entirely possible that more people will be killed driving to the dealer for the [Toyota] recall than lives will be saved from going through the safety theater demanded by the Department of Transportation. […] I face 19 times more risk walking home the mile back from my Toyota dealer than I would driving a car that one assumes has the electronic defect.

Theodore H. Frank; so very true. Fantastically good piece.