4 ms·

Anecdotes Aren't Data

• Bostonian 7y ago
  "His Republican predecessor created a massive new federal department and launched two destructive wars to protect Americans against a hazard, terrorism, that most years kills fewer people than bee stings and lightning strikes." This is glib. Perhaps some of GW Bush's policies prevented a large scale attack such as 9/11 from recurring. Many terrorist plots have been foiled since then.
  • eesmith 7y ago
    And perhaps this rock keeps tigers away - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw . A lot of the 'terrorist plots' the government has found seem more contrived than meaningful. Eg, cases where if the government had done nothing, then it seems likely that nothing still would have happened. Certainly we know that funding was taken away from monitoring and investigating white supremacist terrorism networks in the US in order to look for external ones connected to Moslem. And we know that more people and damage has occurred from white supremacist terrorism. So, from an equally specious argument, perhaps some of GW Bush's policies lead to more deaths from terrorism.
• hhs 7y ago
  I’m surprised there’s no mention of how anecdotes and rhetoric fit into storytelling. I’ve found that good, empirically-based historians tend to weave in facts and data through stories.