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The statistical abuse in this headline is extreme. It's so meaningless, yet so carefully designed to appeal to irrational confirmation biases. Consider some ext
by Banthum 9y ago
The statistical abuse in this headline is extreme. It's so meaningless, yet so carefully designed to appeal to irrational confirmation biases. Consider some extremely simple thought experiments:
e.g. Imagine a world where police do their job even better, and eliminate all murder. But, in some cases, they have to kill the murderer before he takes an innocent victim. They never kill unless it's absolutely necessary and justified. In such a world, this statistic rises to "All people killed by strangers are killed by police", which sounds worse than the headline, yet such a world is obviously better than ours.
e.g. Imagine a world where police never do anything. They drink beer in the station all day. All people killed by strangers are killed by non-police. Such a world is much worse than ours, yet this stat looks a lot better.
Just these very simple thought experiments should give you pause about what this statistical comparison actually means (or if it means anything at all).
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My two questions to those who think this is some sort of obvious travesty:
1. What would be a healthy ratio between [people killed by non-police strangers] and [people killed by police]? 1:5? 1:10? 1:100? Why?
2. How is this random choice of two statistics not just another variation on the Chinese robber fallacy? [1]
[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chinese-robbers/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chine...
- oblio 9y agoWell, maybe it helps to compare: Germany: 2155 homicides in 2011, 6 by the police.
- basicplus2 9y agoGerman killers are smarter?
- WillPostForFood 9y agoHow many German police officers are killed a year? In 2011 it was 69 in the US (and another 58 died in accidents).
- jopsen 9y agoA Google search suggest 0-2 depending on what year you pick, see bottom of: http://www.dw.com/en/two-german-police-officers-killed-by-fleeing-murder-suspect-in-brandenburg/a-37749390 http://www.dw.com/en/two-german-police-officers-killed-by-fl... In most of Western Europe it's extremely rare that police officers are killed in the line of duty. Note: most countries count the number of bullets fired by police, as well as number of times a weapon was drawn, in the US they don't officially count people killed.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- usrusr 9y agoOne source I could find is citing 118 in 30 years. http://m.rp-online.de/politik/studie-gewalt-gegen-polizisten-waechst-aid-1.474619 http://m.rp-online.de/politik/studie-gewalt-gegen-polizisten...
- usrusr 9y ago2155 homicides of which the vast majority are likely by non-strangers, so they would not appear in the statistic the article is proposing.
- aktiur 9y agoThe article also says that 1500 police homicides a year accounts for 8 to 10 per cent of all homicides. The corresponding figure in Germany is less than 0.3 %