Forging Statistics

[Sophus]

Another example of what concerned me in the previous thread I posted in this section: religious leaders bullshitting statistics. To be honest, I don't even know if it's them making it up or if it starts at a lower level and takes off from there. The credulity of people is remarkable.
For example... I've been unfortunate enough recently to have to endure through some Chad Ingram Let My People Think "teachings". He has one on abortion and aside from nutjob quotes like, "the issue of abortion could cause another civil war" he stated that the percentage of rapes that result in pregnancy was something like 6/10's of 1%. According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) it's 5%, over 3,000 women in the US alone ( http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims ). This website also reports the same number: http://www.health.act.gov.au/c/health?a=da&did=10082947&pid=1093913469. Hope for Healing.org it was 4.7%. Trying to figure out where this man got his data I have only found Christian sources, with no authority on social sciences whatsoever, claiming what he is: http://www.christianliferesources.com/?library/view.php&articleid=461 http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b.4223145/k.E7FE/How_Many_Pregnancies_Result_from_Rape_or_Incest.htm

I brought this up to a listener of his, who basically shook her head and said she refused to believe a Christian ministry would make up data. This is why I hate listening to any Christian's claims about anything. I always have to check every little statement to see if it's factual because somebody is flat out making shit up. Sorry, I'm just venting now.

[Tom62]

You've got lies, big lies and statistics . Christians are a master in deceiving the population, since they think the lying for God is OK.

‘There is nothing so easy as by sheer volubility to deceive a common crowd or an uneducated congregation.’

[Squid]

I find it interesting that the journal articles cited were nearly all 30 years old.  I'm pretty sure there is much more recent epidemiological data on rapes that produce a pregnancy but I'm too lazy right now to look.

[Kylyssa]

Depending on what statistics you read anywhere from one in three to one in six of us will get raped, often more than once per individual and, in the case of incest it can be on an ongoing basis for years.

Unprotected sex at an ongoing basis involving a fertile woman equals about an 85% chance of pregnancy per year.

[Squid]

I know this doesn't have to do with rape, but this is another instance where someone plays upon the average person's lack of knowledge.  On another board someone posted a link about the religion vs. IQ idea - that as IQ increases religiosity decreases (an inverse relationship).

Well, Richard Deem from godandscience.com says it's not due to IQ but a country's GDP:

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/religion_vs_iq.html#6TBdfMASnn5x

Well, I read the article and called bullshit on Deem's article.  Here's my reply:

So, I took the raw data that was listed on that site and played around with it in SPSS. After using GDP of the countries as a covariate and utilizing the residual from that through linear regression I ran a second regression. The original run with just IQ and the religion scores yielded an R-squared of 0.52 and once I covaried out GDP from IQ there still appeared the same downward trend as in the original graphs with an R-squared of 0.28 making the variance change of approximately 0.24. Therefore, while the website is correct in that GDP does seem to play a part it is not a refutation of the results that there is still a significant negative trend between IQ and Religiosity and therefore suggests that a higher IQ is still predictive of a lower religiosity score.

You're average Joe would look at the pretty graphs and read the fancy terminology like "correlation coefficient" and think it sounds sciency so it must be right...but you can't bullshit someone who understands the lame Pearson correlations he ran.  So, basically, it's an underhanded way to make people think he's right by bullshitting them with statistics.

[Sophus]

Isn't that incredible?!? It's right on their website. People are unbelievable... no pun intended.

Plus I would never trust a website with such ugly artwork for their header.