Its unfortunately time to get philosophical, which is usually a signal to me that a debate has veered off the topic and become pointless. Anyway, here goes...

Its unfortunately time to get philosophical, which is usually a signal to me that a debate has veered off the topic and become pointless. Anyway, here goes... In philosophy, there is a subject and an object. An object is what the subject observes. An object consists of of properties (has-a) and relations (is-a). Take an orange for example. An orange is-a fruit, and an orange has-a rind, flesh and seeds. It makes sense to compare oranges with oranges (a type of fruit); and orange seeds with orange seeds (the same parts of an orange fruit). Its a stretch to compare an oranges with orange seeds, as they are not the same type of object. Or to put it another way, its like comparing oranges to apples. > Your "oranges-to-oranges" comparison isn't. It is, because I'm comparing instances of the same type of philosophical object. Lets take another very relevant example: homicide. A homicide is simply defined as "the act of one human killing another". So comparing homicides done by policemen with homicides done by civilians, in the same year and country is a valid oranges-to-oranges comparison. Regardless of the circumstances of the homicides, they are all homicides whether justified (e.g. self defense), unjust (murder) or unintentional (man-slaughter). My comparison is not concerned with the parts of the orange (rind, seeds, flesh), but the oranges as a whole. If you'd like to compare police acts of man-slaughter against civilian acts of man-slaughter, that's fine. That's a valid oranges to oranges comparison, just on a lower level of the conceptual heirachy. And even if you did present these statistics, my original point still stands. You cannot however, come up with an invalid comparison (oranges to orange seeds) then try and use it as a straw-man argument against my valid comparison (oranges to oranges).