“U.K. Economy size may be revised upward on EU Statistics changes” is one of our stories in today’s iNews Cayman from Bloomberg, showing the importance of statistics. Important but is their usefulness exaggerated and figures capable of misinterpretation?

Yesterday I was helping a young lady with her dissertation on the subject of policing in various countries and their differences. She was doing a comparison of murder rates in Jamaica with those here in Cayman. We looked at the statistics from both countries and to do a comparison we had to take as our yardstick 50,000 persons – the approximate population of the Cayman Islands. By taking that we found per 50,000 persons there were in 2013 only four murders committed in Cayman compared to 24 in Jamaica.

This proved that Cayman was a much safer place to live than Jamaica.

However, that is not the whole story and this is where statistics can be misleading. It depends where you live in Jamaica and where the 50,000 count is compared.

If you were to take the number of murders committed in the whole of the United Kingdom (UK) and whittled that down to per 50,000 you will get figures comparable to Jamaica’s. However if you take the City of Perth in the UK up in Scotland with a population of 140,000 it only registered 1 murder in 2011.

So Perth is a safer place to live than the Cayman Islands. Only half a person gets murdered there!

The death rate is considerably higher though. 75% of the population is over the age of 70.

When it comes to petty crime, though Perth is not so good in the stats department. Elderly people are an easy touch.

Prostitution is on the rise there, too according to the stats. As one commentator put it there are so many prostitutes and drug addicts in Perth they lock them up in Waverley Hotel – a homeless hostel: “Quite why homeless people need to be housed with hookers and junkies is as yet a mystery, but the Waverley can certainly provide entertainment into the wee small hours!”

So are statistics any use?

Of course there have been numerous learned studies executed to answer this question – at what cost I might ask?

Benoit Godin in Quebec, Canada, carried out one study of note in 2002. You can read the whole thing at: http://www.csiic.ca/PDF/Godin_20.pdf.

Entitled “Are Statistics Really Useful? Myths and Politics of Science and Technology Indicators”, it is almost 40 pages long.

It starts off with two quotes:

“If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask: does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or numbers?  No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion (D. Hume (1748), An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding).

“Statistics are among the most visible and most extensively-used outputs of the OECD. If the OECD were to close its doors tomorrow, the drying up of its statistics would probably make a more rapid and a bigger impact on the  outside  world  than  would  the  abandonment  of  any  of  its  other activities  (OECD  (1994),  Statistics and Indicators for Innovation and Technology,DSTIISTPITIP (94) 2, p.3).”

Godin’s conclusion is:

“The view of statistics and indicators as information for decision-making derives its power and legitimacy from economic theory: the belief that people will act rationally if they have perfect information on which to base their decisions.  It was  not rare, however, to find skeptical remarks concerning  this belief in the literature. In one of the first assessments of the NSF’s Science Indicators (Sl), H. Averell stated: “S/-76 does  not now contribute explicitly toward  the identification of major policy issues, provide predictions of potential ills and goods from science and technology, or relate the impact of science and technology to social and economic variables”.  “I cannot deduce from the information in S/-76 what the level of incentives should be or the efficacy and effectiveness of various proposed options”.  For Averch, “policy options and effects do not flow from indicators(…).”

“Other commentators on the uses of education statistics made similar remarks.  Authors generally recognized that statistics and indicators do play some role. Firstly, “the OECD has been successful in reshaping the statistical systems of its member countries  (…)”.

“Secondly, the OECD statistics indirectly shaped policy agendas and priorities by ranking countries, for example: countries are drawn “into a single comparative field which pivots around ce1tain nonnative assumptions about provision and performance”.   “Inevitably, the establishment of a single playing field sets the stage  for constructing league  tables, whatever  the somewhat disingenuous claims to the contrary. Visually, tables or figures of comparative performance against an OECD or a country mean carry normative overtones (…). To be below or on a par with the OECD  average  invites simplistic or politically motivated comments”.

“But indicators “fall far short of providing data to government officials for [what  they are said to do, i.e.] making social investment  decisions”.

“Whether the data collection requirements have also influenced member  countries to rearrange their policy priorities, however  indirectly, can at present only be speculated upon”.  What can indicators do, then?  For Averch, they can help “to shape lines of argument and policy reasoning”.  161 [Indicators] can serve  as checks (…), they are only part of what is needed (…).”For others, indicators cannot be used  to set goals and priorities or to evaluate programs, but” what  they can do is to describe  and state problems  more clearly, signal new  problems more quickly, and obtain clues about promising new endeavors”. “

In other words statistics are a useful tool but are no means the answer.

In the USA it is a nation of statistics with the majority being totally useless. Just listen to sports commentators. It is verbal diarrhea at its worst.

Even worse, you can make statistics prove anything.

If I asked 10 persons if the world was round or flat and 8 out of 10 said it was flat what would that prove? 8 out of the 10 persons were idiots not that the world was flat!