Letters to the Editor
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What's Right with Anecdotal Evgidence
Author Mooney reminds me of a high IQ duffer. High IQ sorts can locate an argument in outer space and, like a politician, give it super spin down here on earth so that the more gullible amongst us are totally taken in--or almost. I doubt many are buying Mooney's hype that hey, I wanna tell everyone that whatever seems right isn't, cause aren't i brilliant....
Sorry to be crude, but it really does boil down pretty much to that. Consider when folks were starting to put statistics to the death rate associated with smoking. As time went on the statistics grew grimmer and grimmer. But hey, way back when guys like Yule Brynner and Sammy Davis Jr. had it all pretty well figured out. Their message to all of us on Johnny Carson: DON'T SMOKE!!! They didn't need any more figures, they and their doctors had seen enough of the anecdotal evidence that scientists hate to hear about (not "scientific" enough for them even though such data can yield statistically significant results...duh). And that anecdotal evidence sounds a lot louder when YOU are the victim, let me assure you.
And so to New Orleans and Katrina. We have been hearing for a long while that the statistics grow grimmer and grimmer, and all the same, with all the anecdotal evidence of these hurricanes and weird seasons and all--we won't bother with melting ice caps--scientists like the good little Republican hurricane man at Colorado State continue to invent every argument that lets them seem like a genius crying out from the wilderness. Doesn't take a corporate type to fall into the trap. Academics are truly professionals at this gig.
Why be so surprised if a victim of Katrina has his or her attention so clearly focussed? Could it just be that he or she has got it right?? And why might that be? Well, look at those dumb statistics, man. Warmer waters, nastier storms, probably more of them, too. Makes a greater statistical probability for numbers of, and violence of, hurricanes. Ergo global warming increases the probability of these things happening. And the more you have, the greater the probability that one or more will find their way to the Gulf instead of elsewhere, and so on and so forth.
At some point probability is saying to us, well, this particular instance may very well be the case in point that happened owing to the growing increase in probability. So of course you can't prove the case like you prove a mathematical theorem, but that's the logic (the theorem logic) that the wacko scientists demand, the ones who can't understand that all so-called "scientific" data come initially from those horrid unscientific anecdotal occurrences. But those in the wake of Katrina have a more intelligent and up front perspective, given the wealth of factual background upon which the probabilities rest.
I wish clever writers and journalists could be as intellectually honest--and knowledgeable about what constitutes valid evidence--as they are good at concocting stories for why the results of probabilities aren't the results of probabilities. Oh, did I mention, Al Gore just might have a point?