So this is a more opinionated post, but I feel this topic should be addressed, and that those who have already done so have not done it in the best way it should/could be. The topic is the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and the issue of police brutality in America (or, if you prefer, the non-issue thereof). I will discuss how the "No True Scotsman" argument--that no "true" member of a group, as opposed to a traitor to the group, would do a bad thing that a claimed member of the group recently did--can be applied to these issues.
Certainly the name BLM seems pretty uncontroversial. But of course, the fact that they are casting a critical eye on the police and calling some actions taken by multiple individual officers into question, as well as arguing that their practices may be racially biased, is the real root source of controversy here. We have already seen the cycle occur multiple times:
1. Police officer shoots unarmed black man. This shooting can be fatal, but this is not absolutely necessary for the cycle to proceed.
2. BLM protest the shooting and, more generally, police brutality and racism in America.
3. Someone, sometimes (as in Dallas this July) motivated by these protests and criticism of police, decides to murder a (or multiple) cop(s).
4. Conservative critics of BLM pounce on step #3 as proof that BLM "hates cops" and wants them all (or at least the white ones) to be murdered. They then call on these leaders to, at least, renounce violence (as Sargon of Akkad recently did, which partly motivated me to write this post). If they are particularly radical, like Heather Mac Donald, they may demand that BLM and other "anti-cop" individuals and movements stop "demonizing police" by creating a "stream of falsehoods", and allege that these entities' statements have led to "an appalling increase in shootings and murders in many cities across America."
5. BLM and other advocates for police reform respond that theirs is a nonviolent movement.
So I'm gonna talk about the fact that BLM is a movement, not an organization, and how for this reason, anyone can identify with this movement, even if their goals or plans (e.g. murdering cops) are out of line with those that BLM was founded to pursue.
This is where the "No True Scotsman" argument comes in: if someone kills a cop, even if that person says that police brutality and BLM were their motivations to do so (as was the case in Dallas), that doesn't necessarily mean that that person is a "true" member of BLM.
Now, you could also flip this argument around and apply it to cops, which would look something like this: if a police officer does something they definitely shouldn't have done, then they must not be a "true" police officer, but instead someone who did something contrary to what policing is really about.
So is one of these arguments more valid than the other? Yes, in my opinion: the one about BLM. I am saying this because BLM is a loosely organized movement, meaning that there is no vetting process or authority who decides who "gets in" to this movement. In stark contrast, not just anyone can be a police officer; you must first graduate from high school, pass an entrance exam, and then, among other things, undergo about 600 hours of training (though the exact amount varies from state to state). So this is why it matters more when a police officer does something he/she shouldn't do than it does when a BLM member does something he/she shouldn't do.
I will close by adding a link to an excellent blog post I recently found about this subject.
Friday, December 23, 2016
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Where does "eight spiders" really come from?
For the past few weeks I have been, on and off, searching for the origin of the myth that the average person swallows 8 spiders per year in their sleep. (Note: Lemmino already did the exact same thing as me in a very well made and carefully researched video he uploaded this October, which you can watch here.) First, I should note that there is little doubt that this is a myth, and that it is not true. As Scientific American (and Lemmino in his aforementioned video) have noted, this claim "flies in the face of both spider and human biology, which makes it highly unlikely that a spider would ever end up in your mouth." So I'm not gonna focus on that. Instead I will try to find out where this myth originated. Lemmino and fellow YouTuber CGPGrey have already done that, and I think their videos, Lemmino's especially, are pretty clear proof that the source long cited by Snopes (Lisa Holst's purported "article" in "PC Professional" magazine) doesn't exist and was made up by Snopes' webmasters. So I will try to tackle a different question than either Lemmino or CGPGrey did: where did this myth come from?
So I searched a bunch of online databases, including Highbeam and the Google Books archive, to find the oldest books/articles I could regarding this claim. My searches have identified the probable origin of this myth as a 1990 article in the magazine Cornell Engineer, published by the Cornell University School of Engineering. (That said, I recognize that this may have originated earlier, but I don't think there's much of a chance.)
Here are some things that have since become even clearer than the origin of this myth as a result of these searches:
1. This claim has many variations: it seems to have originated, for example, as a claim about the # of spiders swallowed in one's lifetime. This is true not only of the original 1990 article, but also of multiple other articles repeating the myth from 1999, 1999 again, and 2002, among others. That said, there are others claiming it is "eight per year", but there is also at least one source claiming that the average person swallows 8 spiders every day. Granted, it's a fiction book, but still, I would expect published authors to be a little more careful. BTW, one of the 1999 articles cited above cites this webpage listing "useless facts" as the source for the claim, so we know this page was publicizing the claim since at least 1999.
There are also different versions of the myth with different #s of spiders other than 8. For example, alternative numbers of spiders cited include 7, 4, and 10.
2. Many articles and books cite the claim as though it were fact. (E.g. 1, 2) Others cite it more skeptically, like a 1997 Chicago Sun-Times article where a journalist actually called an entomologist at the Field Museum to ask him whether this was true or not. Also, in 2001, the LA Times reported that "The San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, which investigates urban folk tales, says it is not true that "the average person swallows eight spiders a year." Someone made up the stat as a joke, and it quickly became gospel on the Internet." Still others cite it but make it clear that it's an internet legend and/or they just read it in an email, so it might not be true: 1, 2, 3.
So I searched a bunch of online databases, including Highbeam and the Google Books archive, to find the oldest books/articles I could regarding this claim. My searches have identified the probable origin of this myth as a 1990 article in the magazine Cornell Engineer, published by the Cornell University School of Engineering. (That said, I recognize that this may have originated earlier, but I don't think there's much of a chance.)
Here are some things that have since become even clearer than the origin of this myth as a result of these searches:
1. This claim has many variations: it seems to have originated, for example, as a claim about the # of spiders swallowed in one's lifetime. This is true not only of the original 1990 article, but also of multiple other articles repeating the myth from 1999, 1999 again, and 2002, among others. That said, there are others claiming it is "eight per year", but there is also at least one source claiming that the average person swallows 8 spiders every day. Granted, it's a fiction book, but still, I would expect published authors to be a little more careful. BTW, one of the 1999 articles cited above cites this webpage listing "useless facts" as the source for the claim, so we know this page was publicizing the claim since at least 1999.
There are also different versions of the myth with different #s of spiders other than 8. For example, alternative numbers of spiders cited include 7, 4, and 10.
2. Many articles and books cite the claim as though it were fact. (E.g. 1, 2) Others cite it more skeptically, like a 1997 Chicago Sun-Times article where a journalist actually called an entomologist at the Field Museum to ask him whether this was true or not. Also, in 2001, the LA Times reported that "The San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, which investigates urban folk tales, says it is not true that "the average person swallows eight spiders a year." Someone made up the stat as a joke, and it quickly became gospel on the Internet." Still others cite it but make it clear that it's an internet legend and/or they just read it in an email, so it might not be true: 1, 2, 3.
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Did Johnson & Stein cost Clinton the election?
In light of the recent and almost completely unexpected presidential election results, I've decided to see whether third party candidates were responsible for this outcome by stealing votes from Clinton.
First, I will list the margin of victory for Trump (in %) in key swing states, according to CNN (i.e. %Trump-%Clinton):
Florida= 1.3
Pennsylvania= 1.2
Ohio= 8.6
Michigan =0.3 (weird stuff is going on here, with an appeals court recently rejecting an already-underway recount initiated at Jill Stein's behest.)
Wisconsin=1
Georgia=4.7
North Carolina=3.8
Now let's compare that with the % of people who voted for Johnson (J) and Stein (S) in each of these states (in GA and NC, Stein was not on the ballot):
FL: J=2.2, S=0.7 J+S=2.9
PA: J=2.4, S=0.8 J+S=3.2
OH: J=3.2, S=0.8 J+S=4
MI: J=3.6, S=1.1 J+S=4.7
WI: J=3.6, S=1.1 J+S=4.7
GA: J=3.1
NC: J=2.8
Suppose we then divide the margin of victory in each state by the % of voters who voted for J+S combined. (Bear in mind that if the number we get is >1, there's no way third party voters could have cost Clinton the election in that state.) Then this is what we get (results rounded to 2 decimal places):
FL: .45
PA: .38
OH: 2.2
MI: 0.06
WI: 0.21
GA: 1.52
NC: 1.36
Now we can rule out OH, GA, and NC because there's clearly no way Johnson and Stein could have cost Clinton those states. So what about the four remaining states--FL, PA, MI, and WI? Well, if Clinton had won all of them, she would have gotten 75 more electoral votes than she actually did, for a total of 307, which is not only enough to win, but also even more than Trump actually got (albeit by only one).
Exit polling data give us a good idea of how third-party voters would have voted if the race was only between Clinton and Trump. According to CBS, 25% of Johnson voters said they would have voted for Clinton otherwise (C), 15% said Trump (T), and 55% said they would otherwise not have voted (O). Similarly, about 25% of Stein voters said C, 14% said T, and 61% O. So let's multiply the % of each third-party candidates' voters in each of these 4 states.
FL: J: 2.2*.25=.55% more votes for Clinton, 2.2*.15=.33% more for Trump
S: .7*.25=.18% more for Clinton, .7*.14=.1% more for Trump
FL total: .73% more for C, .43% more for Trump
So C would have been .3% closer to winning FL without J and S. But this is not enough, because she would still have been 1% behind Trump there.
PA: J: 2.4*.25=.6% more for C, 2.5*.15=.38% more for Trump
S: 0.8*.25=.2% more for C, 0.8*.14=.11% more for Trump
PA total: .8% more for C, .49% more for Trump
Again, in PA, C would have been about .3% closer to winning without J and S. But this is still not close enough, as she lost the state by 1.2%.
MI: J: 3.6*.25=.9% more for C, 3.6*.15=.54% more for T
S: 1.1*.25=.28% more for C, 1.1*.14=.15% more for T
MI total: 1.18% more for C, .69% more for T
Without J and S, C would have been .49% closer to winning MI than she actually was. Because she lost the state by only .03%, she would have won MI without J and S.
WI (all the same as in MI, weirdly enough): J: 3.6*.25=.9% more for C, 3.6*.15=.54% more for T
S: 1.1*.25=.28% more for C, 1.1*.14-/15% more for T
WI total: 1.18% more for C, .69% more for T
Without J and S, C would have been .49% closer to winning WI than she actually was. But this would not have been enough, because she lost the state by 1%.
So it looks like Clinton would only have won the ridiculously close Michigan race without Johnson and Stein. So she'd have gotten 248 electoral votes, compared to Trump's 290. But Trump would still have won because you only need 270 electoral votes to win.
So the answer to the question "Did Johnson & Stein cost Clinton the election?" seems to be "No."
I should note that Vox looked at this same subject already and concluded that the answer to the title of this post is no. The Washington Post, in contrast, concluded that without Johnson & Stein, "Clinton might have won, based upon these data, but only by winning both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If Trump held onto even one, he would have kept an electoral college majority." The WaPo also noted that in this hypothetical 2-candidate scenario, "In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Clinton and Trump would have tied at 48 percent apiece."
First, I will list the margin of victory for Trump (in %) in key swing states, according to CNN (i.e. %Trump-%Clinton):
Florida= 1.3
Pennsylvania= 1.2
Ohio= 8.6
Michigan =0.3 (weird stuff is going on here, with an appeals court recently rejecting an already-underway recount initiated at Jill Stein's behest.)
Wisconsin=1
Georgia=4.7
North Carolina=3.8
Now let's compare that with the % of people who voted for Johnson (J) and Stein (S) in each of these states (in GA and NC, Stein was not on the ballot):
FL: J=2.2, S=0.7 J+S=2.9
PA: J=2.4, S=0.8 J+S=3.2
OH: J=3.2, S=0.8 J+S=4
MI: J=3.6, S=1.1 J+S=4.7
WI: J=3.6, S=1.1 J+S=4.7
GA: J=3.1
NC: J=2.8
Suppose we then divide the margin of victory in each state by the % of voters who voted for J+S combined. (Bear in mind that if the number we get is >1, there's no way third party voters could have cost Clinton the election in that state.) Then this is what we get (results rounded to 2 decimal places):
FL: .45
PA: .38
OH: 2.2
MI: 0.06
WI: 0.21
GA: 1.52
NC: 1.36
Now we can rule out OH, GA, and NC because there's clearly no way Johnson and Stein could have cost Clinton those states. So what about the four remaining states--FL, PA, MI, and WI? Well, if Clinton had won all of them, she would have gotten 75 more electoral votes than she actually did, for a total of 307, which is not only enough to win, but also even more than Trump actually got (albeit by only one).
Exit polling data give us a good idea of how third-party voters would have voted if the race was only between Clinton and Trump. According to CBS, 25% of Johnson voters said they would have voted for Clinton otherwise (C), 15% said Trump (T), and 55% said they would otherwise not have voted (O). Similarly, about 25% of Stein voters said C, 14% said T, and 61% O. So let's multiply the % of each third-party candidates' voters in each of these 4 states.
FL: J: 2.2*.25=.55% more votes for Clinton, 2.2*.15=.33% more for Trump
S: .7*.25=.18% more for Clinton, .7*.14=.1% more for Trump
FL total: .73% more for C, .43% more for Trump
So C would have been .3% closer to winning FL without J and S. But this is not enough, because she would still have been 1% behind Trump there.
PA: J: 2.4*.25=.6% more for C, 2.5*.15=.38% more for Trump
S: 0.8*.25=.2% more for C, 0.8*.14=.11% more for Trump
PA total: .8% more for C, .49% more for Trump
Again, in PA, C would have been about .3% closer to winning without J and S. But this is still not close enough, as she lost the state by 1.2%.
MI: J: 3.6*.25=.9% more for C, 3.6*.15=.54% more for T
S: 1.1*.25=.28% more for C, 1.1*.14=.15% more for T
MI total: 1.18% more for C, .69% more for T
Without J and S, C would have been .49% closer to winning MI than she actually was. Because she lost the state by only .03%, she would have won MI without J and S.
WI (all the same as in MI, weirdly enough): J: 3.6*.25=.9% more for C, 3.6*.15=.54% more for T
S: 1.1*.25=.28% more for C, 1.1*.14-/15% more for T
WI total: 1.18% more for C, .69% more for T
Without J and S, C would have been .49% closer to winning WI than she actually was. But this would not have been enough, because she lost the state by 1%.
So it looks like Clinton would only have won the ridiculously close Michigan race without Johnson and Stein. So she'd have gotten 248 electoral votes, compared to Trump's 290. But Trump would still have won because you only need 270 electoral votes to win.
So the answer to the question "Did Johnson & Stein cost Clinton the election?" seems to be "No."
I should note that Vox looked at this same subject already and concluded that the answer to the title of this post is no. The Washington Post, in contrast, concluded that without Johnson & Stein, "Clinton might have won, based upon these data, but only by winning both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If Trump held onto even one, he would have kept an electoral college majority." The WaPo also noted that in this hypothetical 2-candidate scenario, "In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Clinton and Trump would have tied at 48 percent apiece."
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Why Samantha Bee is right about Catholic hospitals
In a recent episode of her show Full Frontal, Samantha Bee lambasted Catholic hospitals that refused to perform abortions and related procedures because it conflicted with their religious beliefs. Naturally, anti-abortion conservatives, realizing that the tide of public opinion is turning against them, are not happy; among the anti-choicers to "debunk" Bee's claims is the National Review's Alexandra Descantis, who recently wrote an article for the National Review Online attacking Bee's segment as "dishonest". Now pretty much everything on the NRO's website is bullshit, but I randomly decided to dismantle this particular article because I only recently saw the (brand-new) segment. So let's go through Descantis's claims one by one:
• She claims that Bee ignores the storied, centuries-old tradition of Catholic teachings on abortion being evil and/or murder. Specifically, Descantis writes that instead of acknowledging this history and tradition, "she [Bee] portrays the Catholic guidelines for hospitals as a set of random proscriptions cobbled together by a group of old men (bishops) trying to control and harm women." Later, in response to Bee's claim about Catholic Church officials giving advice regarding reproductive health, she says, "Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals don’t give “reproductive advice”; they articulate the truth about human life and reproductive ethics in accord with Catholic teaching. A teaching promulgated and practiced for centuries by an entire religious group is fundamentally distinct from a panel of “virgins in bathrobes” dictating to women what they can and cannot do."
Response: This is irrelevant to the question of whether these hospitals are acting in the best interest of their patients, as they should be, as opposed to imposing their religious beliefs on others who do not share them, even when they endanger the patients' lives. It is not essential that, in order to be right about these issues, someone comprehensively summarize the traditions whereby Catholic abortion dogma was passed down over hundreds of years. However, those who seek to defend traditions dating back that far must acknowledge how much better healthcare is now because such barbaric practices are no longer followed in the name of religious dogma. Also, re that last sentence: no it isn't, at least not in terms of the authorities deciding what the dogma is (the Pope and other archbishops) or its consequences (serious medical conditions).
Descantis then moves on to the case of Jennafer Norris, who was refused a tubal ligation while having an emergency C-section at a Catholic hospital. She also acknowledges that Rupa Natarajan was not allowed to perform abortions while working at a Catholic hospital as an OBGYN. She responds by arguing that both these women could have gone to other hospitals, and then acknowledges that Bee responds by saying that it's hard to divert an ambulance's path to drive to a non-Catholic hospital, and that even if you could, you might run out of gas on the way. Her response to this response is laughably pathetic: "No woman has to grab the wheel of an ambulance while in the midst of miscarrying; she just has to call an ambulance from a non-Catholic hospital. Though it sometimes might be inconvenient for a woman to travel to a non-Catholic hospital, the inconvenience surely does not outweigh the importance of conscience rights, which demand that Catholic hospitals not be forced to provide procedures that Catholicism deems morally wrong."
Response: How is there a difference between abruptly diverting one's path to go to hospital B instead of A, or going to hospital A and then to hospital B? Sure, it's easier to call an ambulance at a hospital than to frantically divert one's path en route, but it's also slower, which can be a serious problem in these types of emergency scenarios. The argument about it being more important for Catholic hospitals to impose their dogma on unwilling women than for these women to not suffer serious medical consequences as a result is indefensibly and unambiguously wrong.
Here's Descantis's response to Bee's claim about women possibly dying if doctors don't terminate their pregnancies: "a direct abortion (in which a doctor intentionally kills a child) is never medically necessary to save a mother’s life." (emphasis in original)
Response: Wrong. Watch the episode for the case that led to the excommunication of Margaret McBride (starting at about the 2:30 mark), which clearly involves a woman who only lived because the doctors aborted her child.
Lastly, Descantis deals with the case of Mindy Swank, who wanted staff at a Catholic hospital to terminate her pregnancy so she wouldn't be at risk of an infection, uterine loss, and possibly even death, and because the child had birth defects. The hospital refused, and sent Mindy to a non-Catholic hospital. (See the episode for more details.) Descantis's response is as follows: "While the Catholic hospital certainly would “treat” Mindy, she falsely asserts that her life was in danger because she was refused an abortion. In fact, delivering a child with birth defects poses no health risks to the mother, other than those commonly associated with giving birth."
Response: Irrelevant, because, as I noted above, Mindy had to worry about other concerns than just giving birth to the child, like an infection or possible death. These concerns could have been dealt with by aborting the child, but weren't.
• She claims that Bee ignores the storied, centuries-old tradition of Catholic teachings on abortion being evil and/or murder. Specifically, Descantis writes that instead of acknowledging this history and tradition, "she [Bee] portrays the Catholic guidelines for hospitals as a set of random proscriptions cobbled together by a group of old men (bishops) trying to control and harm women." Later, in response to Bee's claim about Catholic Church officials giving advice regarding reproductive health, she says, "Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals don’t give “reproductive advice”; they articulate the truth about human life and reproductive ethics in accord with Catholic teaching. A teaching promulgated and practiced for centuries by an entire religious group is fundamentally distinct from a panel of “virgins in bathrobes” dictating to women what they can and cannot do."
Response: This is irrelevant to the question of whether these hospitals are acting in the best interest of their patients, as they should be, as opposed to imposing their religious beliefs on others who do not share them, even when they endanger the patients' lives. It is not essential that, in order to be right about these issues, someone comprehensively summarize the traditions whereby Catholic abortion dogma was passed down over hundreds of years. However, those who seek to defend traditions dating back that far must acknowledge how much better healthcare is now because such barbaric practices are no longer followed in the name of religious dogma. Also, re that last sentence: no it isn't, at least not in terms of the authorities deciding what the dogma is (the Pope and other archbishops) or its consequences (serious medical conditions).
Descantis then moves on to the case of Jennafer Norris, who was refused a tubal ligation while having an emergency C-section at a Catholic hospital. She also acknowledges that Rupa Natarajan was not allowed to perform abortions while working at a Catholic hospital as an OBGYN. She responds by arguing that both these women could have gone to other hospitals, and then acknowledges that Bee responds by saying that it's hard to divert an ambulance's path to drive to a non-Catholic hospital, and that even if you could, you might run out of gas on the way. Her response to this response is laughably pathetic: "No woman has to grab the wheel of an ambulance while in the midst of miscarrying; she just has to call an ambulance from a non-Catholic hospital. Though it sometimes might be inconvenient for a woman to travel to a non-Catholic hospital, the inconvenience surely does not outweigh the importance of conscience rights, which demand that Catholic hospitals not be forced to provide procedures that Catholicism deems morally wrong."
Response: How is there a difference between abruptly diverting one's path to go to hospital B instead of A, or going to hospital A and then to hospital B? Sure, it's easier to call an ambulance at a hospital than to frantically divert one's path en route, but it's also slower, which can be a serious problem in these types of emergency scenarios. The argument about it being more important for Catholic hospitals to impose their dogma on unwilling women than for these women to not suffer serious medical consequences as a result is indefensibly and unambiguously wrong.
Here's Descantis's response to Bee's claim about women possibly dying if doctors don't terminate their pregnancies: "a direct abortion (in which a doctor intentionally kills a child) is never medically necessary to save a mother’s life." (emphasis in original)
Response: Wrong. Watch the episode for the case that led to the excommunication of Margaret McBride (starting at about the 2:30 mark), which clearly involves a woman who only lived because the doctors aborted her child.
Lastly, Descantis deals with the case of Mindy Swank, who wanted staff at a Catholic hospital to terminate her pregnancy so she wouldn't be at risk of an infection, uterine loss, and possibly even death, and because the child had birth defects. The hospital refused, and sent Mindy to a non-Catholic hospital. (See the episode for more details.) Descantis's response is as follows: "While the Catholic hospital certainly would “treat” Mindy, she falsely asserts that her life was in danger because she was refused an abortion. In fact, delivering a child with birth defects poses no health risks to the mother, other than those commonly associated with giving birth."
Response: Irrelevant, because, as I noted above, Mindy had to worry about other concerns than just giving birth to the child, like an infection or possible death. These concerns could have been dealt with by aborting the child, but weren't.
Monday, May 23, 2016
Is there any credible argument for Texas's abortion law?
On July 18, 2013, the then-governor of Texas, Rick Perry, signed House Bill 2 (abbreviated HB2), an omnibus anti-abortion bill into law. The "omnibus" refers to the fact that the bill contains 4 different provisions, all of which have long been promoted by the pro-life movement. The provisions of the law are as follows:
1. Abortion after 20 weeks is now illegal.
2. Abortion clinics to meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs), even if they do not provide surgical abortions.
3. Doctors who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of the clinic where they perform them.
Now it's clearly medically unnecessary to make abortions illegal after 20 weeks, so the only reason for this would be to "protect the lives of the unborn" rather than the health of women. But regarding the second two provisions, some argument, superficial though it may be, can be and has been made for how these laws benefit/protect women's health.
First, let's look at the ASC issue. What is an ASC? According to NPR, "Such facilities are mini-hospitals, with wide corridors, large operating rooms and advanced HVAC systems, among other requirements." On the surface it seems fair to make abortion clinics conform to higher safety standards, especially when you read on right-wing websites that such standards "ensure that these facilities have a sterile environment and proper sanitation; an adequate number of trained and qualified staffers; and the ability to address medical emergencies, emergency access, and basic fire prevention and safety." Similarly, Texas Solicitor General Ken Paxton has claimed that these laws are necessary for "ensuring that EMTs can have access to the facilities" and that "there's not a maze of hallways." However, the fact remains that abortion is exceptionally safe already: with a mortality rate of <1/100,000 abortions, it's safer than almost any other medical procedure, including plastic surgery. Also, as the AMA and ACOG pointed out in their amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court, "Abortion procedures do not require the full operating theater or external sterility precautions that are mandated by H.B. 2," (page 11) and the ACOG has noted that this law sets a higher standard than for other procedures with higher risk, like colonoscopy. Similarly, the AMA/ACOG brief noted that "no law requires colonoscopies or liposuction to be performed in an ASC or hospital setting, despite the fact that the mortality rate for both procedures is higher than for abortion," which undermines the argument made by proponents of the law that it requires abortion clinics to meet "the same minimum cleanliness and safety standards as other outpatient surgery facilities." (page 15)
So now that it's been established that this law is unnecessary and won't provide any benefits, we must then ask what, if any, the downsides of it are or will be. The most obvious comes from the closure of clinics that will be caused by these laws, as well as, of course, the ones that the law has already forced to close.
Some have argued that this law didn't cause the closure of the 22 clinics that are no longer open in Texas that were open before the law was passed, or that even if it did, it was the requirement for medication abortions that did it, not the admitting privileges or ASC requirements. Yet, as Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has pointed out, the trends in the number of clinics open after the law took effect and then was suspended is exactly what we would expect if the law caused clinic closures. In her words: “It’s almost like the perfect controlled experiment as to the effect of the law, isn’t it? It’s like you put the law into effect, 12 clinics closed. You take the law out of effect, they reopen.” Also worth noting is that according to NPR, the law would close at least 10 of the 19 remaining clinics in the state if it is upheld by SCOTUS. This makes sense not just because many abortion doctors can't get admitting privileges, but also because building/buying an ASC to comply with that provision of the law would cost millions of dollars for a clinic to do.
So what? Perhaps the closure of these clinics will still not place an undue burden on women seeking abortions in Texas. This is the argument that has been advanced by the state in the SCOTUS case about this law: according to NBC News, they have argued that "More than 90 percent of women of reproductive age live within 150 miles" of one of the clinics that would remain open if the law went into effect completely. This claim originates from Todd Giberson, a geographer who testified in defense of the state and HB2. Yet his analysis has been criticized because, according to Mary Tuma, it "did not take into account women who would be unable to secure access to a car (such as poor women along the U.S.-Mexico border), and included a facility in New Mexico as a clinic within reach for those residing in El Paso." Also, the problem with including a clinic in New Mexico is that, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg has pointed out, New Mexico doesn't require abortion clinics to meet ASC standards or for abortionists to have admitting privileges.
Lastly, the state argues that its law would have prevented incidents like that of Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of multiple charges related to exploiting pregnant women who wanted abortions (charges that included murder and involuntary manslaughter) in 2013. Yet this argument doesn't hold up to scrutiny, because, for one thing, as has been pointed out at Slate's Double X blog, "the story of Kermit Gosnell is not one of under-regulation, but rather of government failing to enforce already-existing laws that were more than sufficient to shut him down."
In short, the answer to the question posed in the title of post is no.
1. Abortion after 20 weeks is now illegal.
2. Abortion clinics to meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs), even if they do not provide surgical abortions.
3. Doctors who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of the clinic where they perform them.
Now it's clearly medically unnecessary to make abortions illegal after 20 weeks, so the only reason for this would be to "protect the lives of the unborn" rather than the health of women. But regarding the second two provisions, some argument, superficial though it may be, can be and has been made for how these laws benefit/protect women's health.
First, let's look at the ASC issue. What is an ASC? According to NPR, "Such facilities are mini-hospitals, with wide corridors, large operating rooms and advanced HVAC systems, among other requirements." On the surface it seems fair to make abortion clinics conform to higher safety standards, especially when you read on right-wing websites that such standards "ensure that these facilities have a sterile environment and proper sanitation; an adequate number of trained and qualified staffers; and the ability to address medical emergencies, emergency access, and basic fire prevention and safety." Similarly, Texas Solicitor General Ken Paxton has claimed that these laws are necessary for "ensuring that EMTs can have access to the facilities" and that "there's not a maze of hallways." However, the fact remains that abortion is exceptionally safe already: with a mortality rate of <1/100,000 abortions, it's safer than almost any other medical procedure, including plastic surgery. Also, as the AMA and ACOG pointed out in their amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court, "Abortion procedures do not require the full operating theater or external sterility precautions that are mandated by H.B. 2," (page 11) and the ACOG has noted that this law sets a higher standard than for other procedures with higher risk, like colonoscopy. Similarly, the AMA/ACOG brief noted that "no law requires colonoscopies or liposuction to be performed in an ASC or hospital setting, despite the fact that the mortality rate for both procedures is higher than for abortion," which undermines the argument made by proponents of the law that it requires abortion clinics to meet "the same minimum cleanliness and safety standards as other outpatient surgery facilities." (page 15)
So now that it's been established that this law is unnecessary and won't provide any benefits, we must then ask what, if any, the downsides of it are or will be. The most obvious comes from the closure of clinics that will be caused by these laws, as well as, of course, the ones that the law has already forced to close.
Some have argued that this law didn't cause the closure of the 22 clinics that are no longer open in Texas that were open before the law was passed, or that even if it did, it was the requirement for medication abortions that did it, not the admitting privileges or ASC requirements. Yet, as Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has pointed out, the trends in the number of clinics open after the law took effect and then was suspended is exactly what we would expect if the law caused clinic closures. In her words: “It’s almost like the perfect controlled experiment as to the effect of the law, isn’t it? It’s like you put the law into effect, 12 clinics closed. You take the law out of effect, they reopen.” Also worth noting is that according to NPR, the law would close at least 10 of the 19 remaining clinics in the state if it is upheld by SCOTUS. This makes sense not just because many abortion doctors can't get admitting privileges, but also because building/buying an ASC to comply with that provision of the law would cost millions of dollars for a clinic to do.
So what? Perhaps the closure of these clinics will still not place an undue burden on women seeking abortions in Texas. This is the argument that has been advanced by the state in the SCOTUS case about this law: according to NBC News, they have argued that "More than 90 percent of women of reproductive age live within 150 miles" of one of the clinics that would remain open if the law went into effect completely. This claim originates from Todd Giberson, a geographer who testified in defense of the state and HB2. Yet his analysis has been criticized because, according to Mary Tuma, it "did not take into account women who would be unable to secure access to a car (such as poor women along the U.S.-Mexico border), and included a facility in New Mexico as a clinic within reach for those residing in El Paso." Also, the problem with including a clinic in New Mexico is that, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg has pointed out, New Mexico doesn't require abortion clinics to meet ASC standards or for abortionists to have admitting privileges.
Lastly, the state argues that its law would have prevented incidents like that of Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of multiple charges related to exploiting pregnant women who wanted abortions (charges that included murder and involuntary manslaughter) in 2013. Yet this argument doesn't hold up to scrutiny, because, for one thing, as has been pointed out at Slate's Double X blog, "the story of Kermit Gosnell is not one of under-regulation, but rather of government failing to enforce already-existing laws that were more than sufficient to shut him down."
In short, the answer to the question posed in the title of post is no.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
"Politically correct" facts that Paul Joseph Watson Daren't Talk About
This post is a response to this video by British Infowars-affiliated conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson, as well as this article Watson wrote for Infowars.com and which he uses as a source in his video.
First, I will respond to his point that black people are "more likely to be victims of violent confrontations with police officers than whites because they commit more violent crimes than whites per capita." Now this hypothesis can be tested, by seeing not just if black people are more likely to be shot by police than white people, as even Watson acknowledges is the case, but also by seeing if there is a relationship between crime rates in an area of the US, whether by black people or overall, and racial bias in police shootings in that area. As it happens, a study has been done testing this hypothesis, and it found that:
- "the probability of being {black, unarmed, and shot by police} is about 3.49 times the probability of being {white, unarmed, and shot by police} on average." Alright, so Watson seems to be right so far, but it's the next finding that seems to contradict his narrative:
- "There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates." Well that would seem to be inconvenient for someone who wants to portray a disparity as the fault of black people. I'm sure Watson will pull some other factor out of his ass to claim that this disparity isn't the result of systemic racism, b/c he's dug himself too deep into this "politically incorrect" hole to climb out now.
Next I will address Watson's claims about blacks committing more crime than whites relative to their share of the population. His claims in this regard are as follows:
"Despite making up just 13% of the population, blacks commit around half of homicides in the United States. DOJ statistics show that between 1980 and 2008, blacks committed 52% of homicides, compared to 45% of homicides committed by whites.
More up to date FBI statistics tell a similar story. In 2013, black criminals carried out 38% of murders, compared to 31.1% for whites, again despite the fact that there are five times more white people in the U.S.
From 2011 to 2013, 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black. This figure is three times higher than the 13% black population figure. When you account for the fact that black males aged 15-34, who account for around 3% of the population, are responsible for the vast majority of these crimes, the figures are even more staggering."
This is all true, but misleading: for one thing, black people are much more likely than white people to be the victims of murder. From 1980 to 2008, the homicide victimization rate was 6x higher for blacks than for whites. Why? Well, there is some evidence that racial disparities in poverty and the prevalence of families headed by women are a factor. However, this does not explain the entire Black-White homicide gap. Other factors proposed to explain at least part of it include that, according to one theory, "Individuals belonging to groups perceived to have low marginal penalties for killing will be feared, and they will accordingly also be killed with greater frequency. By the same token, individuals whose own deaths are less likely to be investigated and prosecuted vigorously will fear being killed, and may therefore be induced to kill preemptively. This means that social groups with high victimization rates will also have high murder rates, even if there is no racial segregation in social interactions." This theory predicts that more segregated neighborhoods will have higher racial disparities in murder rates, a theory which a number of studies have found evidence for.
Black people are also more likely than white people to be victims of all other kinds of crime besides homicide. The evidence suggests that "differences in disadvantage that explain the overwhelming portion of the difference in crime, especially criminal violence, between white and African American communities."
Moving on:
"Despite the fact that black people commit an equal or greater number of violent crimes than whites, whites are almost TWICE as likely to be killed by police officers.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, between 1999 and 2011, 2,151 whites died as a result of being shot by police compared to 1,130 blacks."
The word that renders the above claims bogus is "likely". This implies that a higher percentage of white people were killed by police than black people, which, given that there are about 5x more whites than blacks in the U.S., is not the case at all. Even though almost 2x as many whites were killed by police as blacks during the above time period, when you account for their share in the general population, blacks were 3x more likely than whites to be victims of such killings. This is comparable to the 3.49x figure for being unarmed I cited above.
The word that renders the above claims bogus is "likely". This implies that a higher percentage of white people were killed by police than black people, which, given that there are about 5x more whites than blacks in the U.S., is not the case at all. Even though almost 2x as many whites were killed by police as blacks during the above time period, when you account for their share in the general population, blacks were 3x more likely than whites to be victims of such killings. This is comparable to the 3.49x figure for being unarmed I cited above.
Now Watson acknowledges that blacks are overrepresented among police shooting victims, but argues that they are underrepresented with respect to perpetrators of violent crime. Yet as I noted above, there is no association between race-specific crime rates in an area and the racial disparity in police shootings in that area, so this explanation doesn't hold up. Another recent study found that with regard to police shootings, "Race does matter but only insofar as it increases the level of firearm violence and, even then, only to a point."
Watson's next argument is that "Despite being outnumbered by whites five to one, blacks commit eight times more crimes against whites than vice-versa, according to FBI statistics from 2007. A black male is 40 times as likely to assault a white person as the reverse. These figures also show that interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white."
I will tackle the first of these claims first: that there are way more whites than blacks but for some strange reason blacks commit more crimes against whites than vice versa. Yet this is misleading because it is precisely because there are more whites in the U.S. that we expect more white victims of interracial crime than black ones. As Sampson and Lauritsen put it, "In felony homicides,as in robberies, black offenders are more likely to victimize whites than white offenders are to victimize blacks.Yet this is still what we should expect because blacks are the smaller group and have more chances to interact with whites. Variations in the relative sizes of the black and white populations thus explain the patterning of interracial violence." (see page 329)
As for the interracial rape claim, this comes from a column by Pat Buchanan in which he says that "Interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white — with 14,000 assaults on white women by African Americans in 2007. Not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female was found in the FBI study." The study in question was not actually conducted by the FBI, but by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). As Media Matters has pointed out, "The BJS study is not a tally of every single violent crime committed in 2007, but, rather, an estimate based on a nationwide household survey. The study makes clear that its estimates for the overall number of blacks who were raped and for the number of whites who were raped by blacks are both based on interviews with 10 or fewer respondents."
Michael Rand, a statistician who worked on the study, has said that Buchanan is interpreting it incorrectly, noting that, according to Media Matters, "these small sample sizes [of 10 or fewer respondents]-- which result from the fact that blacks make up less than 13 percent of the overall population and from the fact that rape is a relatively infrequent crime -- prevent the BJS from accurately calculating margins of error" and that for this reason, the BJS data cited by Buchanan "are not reliable as exact point estimates of the actual levels of such crime."
Watson's next argument is that "Despite being outnumbered by whites five to one, blacks commit eight times more crimes against whites than vice-versa, according to FBI statistics from 2007. A black male is 40 times as likely to assault a white person as the reverse. These figures also show that interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white."
I will tackle the first of these claims first: that there are way more whites than blacks but for some strange reason blacks commit more crimes against whites than vice versa. Yet this is misleading because it is precisely because there are more whites in the U.S. that we expect more white victims of interracial crime than black ones. As Sampson and Lauritsen put it, "In felony homicides,as in robberies, black offenders are more likely to victimize whites than white offenders are to victimize blacks.Yet this is still what we should expect because blacks are the smaller group and have more chances to interact with whites. Variations in the relative sizes of the black and white populations thus explain the patterning of interracial violence." (see page 329)
As for the interracial rape claim, this comes from a column by Pat Buchanan in which he says that "Interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white — with 14,000 assaults on white women by African Americans in 2007. Not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female was found in the FBI study." The study in question was not actually conducted by the FBI, but by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). As Media Matters has pointed out, "The BJS study is not a tally of every single violent crime committed in 2007, but, rather, an estimate based on a nationwide household survey. The study makes clear that its estimates for the overall number of blacks who were raped and for the number of whites who were raped by blacks are both based on interviews with 10 or fewer respondents."
Michael Rand, a statistician who worked on the study, has said that Buchanan is interpreting it incorrectly, noting that, according to Media Matters, "these small sample sizes [of 10 or fewer respondents]-- which result from the fact that blacks make up less than 13 percent of the overall population and from the fact that rape is a relatively infrequent crime -- prevent the BJS from accurately calculating margins of error" and that for this reason, the BJS data cited by Buchanan "are not reliable as exact point estimates of the actual levels of such crime."
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
A critical analysis of "Racism in the United States: by the Numbers" and criticisms thereof
In this post I will be looking at the issue of whether systemic racism against black people exists in the United States, as claimed by John Green in his video "Racism in the United States: By the Numbers", which was released in December 2014. I will also address both Green's claims and those made by Sean Last on the website "therightstuff.biz" in this article, (update: link is dead, replaced with archive) in which he claims to debunk every claim Green makes in his video.
First: longer prison sentences for black men who were convicted of similar crimes as white men. To be specific, Green cites a Sentencing Commission report from 2013 that found that black men's prison sentences were "nearly 20% longer than those of white men for similar crimes in recent years." The same report stated, as Green did, that the racial sentencing gap has increased markedly in the past decade, or, more precisely, since 2005, when the Supreme Court's US v. Booker decision allowed judges to issue sentences outside of a range of guidelines set by the Commission. Yet, a study published the same year found no evidence that the Booker decision caused the racial disparity to increase or even that it had increased since then. But the question remains: do black people get longer prison sentences than white people, and if so, what is the cause of this difference? The Sentencing Commission showed that the answer to the first question is yes, but there are many other factors that must be accounted for before concluding that this difference is due to discrimination. As Last notes, "“similar” crimes are not identical crimes. It may be that the average assault committed by a black man is significantly worse than the average assault committed by a white man. " Well, perhaps a more thorough analysis better controlling for non-race factors would suit you better, no? In that case, I would like to direct you to a study published 2 years ago that found that "... initial case and defendant characteristics, including arrest offense and criminal history, can explain most of the large raw racial disparity in federal sentences, but significant gaps remain. Across the distribution, blacks receive sentences that are almost 10 percent longer than those of comparable whites arrested for the same crimes." Last also cites a very strange and under-publicized study published in 2013 that found that differences in arrest and incarceration rates between black and white males can be "completely accounted for after including covariates for self-reported lifetime violence and IQ." But Last doesn't mention that in one of the few discussions of this study I could find anywhere on the Internet, Rebecca Coffey noted that "If the data in this research prove to be sound, its conclusions about the criminal justice system are still off the mark. One needs to examine the criminal justice system itself in order to pronounce about its integrity. The real matter at hand, though, is what if the data about White vs. African Americans hold water? They suggest that, more than white men, African American men engage in violence—and, on average, their IQs are lower. Ouch. But, as the saying goes, “context is everything.” Decades of research have associated poor education with low scores on intelligence tests. Another mountain of research has shown that a lifetime of being routinely denied access to common courtesies, to just returns on one’s labors, and to whatever pot of gold may be at the end of life’s big rainbow could drive a man to drink, drugs, and maybe even violence."
Green also cites data that concludes that there is little difference between the rate at which white people and black people use illegal drugs, but that black people are 3x more likely to be arrested for drug possession. The figure he cited came from the 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The issue, according to critics, is that surveys are unreliable when it comes to racial differences in drug use because, as Last puts it, "As difficult as this is for some to accept, the truth is that blacks are more likely to lie about using drugs than whites are. This may sound like a harsh conclusion, but many studies done over several decades have shown that this is the case." Among these studies, according to Last, is one from 2005 that tested concordance between self-reported drug use and objectively measured test results. This study concluded that "the results replicate and extend a growing body of research suggesting that African Americans underreport substance use on surveys." However, there is more to the story. The same study notes that "The results showed that relative to African Americans, Whites had significantly larger odds of providing concordant responses; the point estimate for the odds ratio exceeds a value of 15. This large and significant effect is diminished by the entry of a single mediating variable in the model, SES [socioeconomic status]. With the addition of SES, the odds ratio contrasting Whites with African Americans is reduced to a nonsignificant point estimate value." That is, the racial difference may not be because the underreporters are black so much as because they are of a lower socioeconomic status than whites.
As far as police searches, Green notes that black people are more likely to be stopped and searched by police, even though certain kinds of contraband are found more often in white people than in black people. As evidence he cites a 2008 article by Ian Ayres, a Yale Law School professor, in which he describes a study he co-wrote looking at police stops in Los Angeles. Ayres summarizes his findings as follows:
Last's response is as follows: "The fundamental problem with this data is simple: there are lots of reasons why blacks might be getting stopped more than whites that have nothing to do with racism. The use of this statistic to prove racism assumes that none of these alternatives are true. For instance, black people are far less likely than white people to own a car. So this argument assumes that walking around town doesn’t increase your chances of getting stopped. It also assumes that blacks don’t spend more time away from home than whites do. If you’re out of the house more, your chances of getting stopped by police will go up. It assumes that blacks don’t act more suspiciously than whites do. Blacks might be more likely to wear clothing associated with criminality, to loiter for long periods of time, etc. Green’s argument makes all of these assumptions but he provides evidence for none of them."
Now there is one problem with this first argument. It's entirely speculative, which is ironic because Last is accusing Green of making assertions without evidence, except for the one part about how black people are less likely to own cars. So what? Ayres' study looked at both traffic and pedestrian stops.
I became more optimistic when it came to the next part in Last's post, which reads:
Green next points out that of the 336 DNA exonerations of convicted criminals nationwide, 206 convicts were black. This works out to about 61%, which is way higher than the 13.2% of the general population of the US who are black as of July 1, 2014. Last's response:
Because minorities are more likely to be arrested as juveniles, false confessions and fictitious incriminating statements are more prone to occur. Juveniles are especially vulnerable to giving false confessions because they’re easier to manipulate."
Green's next point is that black kids are more likely to be tried as adults--and sentenced to life in prison--than their white counterparts. His source--a 2012 article in the New York Times-- doesn't say much about these disparities, except to provide a link to back up the authors' claim that 84% of juveniles sentenced to life in prison for non-homicide charges were black in 2009. The link doesn't seem to say this, at least not in the abstract, but maybe it's somewhere in the full body of the article. There is, however, more evidence that people are more likely to recommend that a juvenile be transferred to adult court if the juvenile in question is black.
Last's response is to trot out the old (and true) talking point about how black adults commit more violent crime than do their white counterparts, arguing that for this reason, we should expect that "black juveniles [are] simply more likely than white juveniles to commit serious crimes or to have histories of crime." Maybe, but what if you were to look only at black and white juveniles who were convicted of murder, so they committed the same crime, and then see if there are racial differences between the black and white members of this group? As it happens, no surprise, this has been done, and 1/8 black juveniles convicted of murder will be sentenced to life in prison, as compared with 1/13 white kids convicted thereof. Also backing up claims of racial bias on this point is the fact that, according to a 2000 study, "African American, Latino and Asian American youth are significantly more likely to be transferred to adult court and sentenced to incarceration than white youths who
commit comparable crimes. Compared to white youths, minority youths are 2.8 times more likely to be arrested for a violent crime, 6.2 times more likely to wind up in adult court, and 7 times more likely to be sent to prison by adult court."
Another 2000 study showed that in California, "Hispanic youth were 6 times more likely, and African American youth were 12 times more likely than White youth to be transferred to adult court. Minority youth did have higher arrest rates, but examination of the arrest categories suggests little reason (such as greater number of violent crimes) for the racial disparity in terms of transfers to adult court."
Last also argues that black children mature faster than white ones do, citing multiple sources, the first of which is a 1967 study by Arthur Jensen. I looked everywhere in that paper for mentions of anything Last attributed to it (which is that "Even as infants blacks posses [sic] brain waves and skeletal features which suggest greater physical maturity.") and couldn't find anything that matches what he claims. But he then makes up for this deficit and cites a story about this study, which found that black people age faster biologically than white people do, and this story which says that black girls on average go through puberty .9 years earlier than do their white counterparts. I personally consider this less relevant than the actual criminal history or characteristics of the crime for which a given juvenile was sentenced, because this is what should, ideally, determine the way in which minorities are treated.
I will close this section by quoting from a 1996 study on this subject:
"Nonwhite youths referred for delinquent acts are more likely than comparable white youths to be recommended for petition to court, to be held in pre-adjudicatory detention, to be formally processed in juvenile court, and to receive the most formal or the most restrictive judicial dispositions."
Later, the authors state:
"Our qualitative findings support several interpretations. Intentional race discrimination does not appear to play a major role in accounting for racial disparities in processing. Although some officials whom we interviewed believed that some justice officials were motivated by prejudicial attitudes, few recounted specific instances of racially motivated actions. Without question, there are some justice officials who hold and act upon racially prejudicial attitudes. As long as race bias exists in the general culture, it would be surprising indeed if it did not operate through individuals in the juvenile justice system as well. However, we are not inclined to conclude that the disparities we observed are largely attributable to intentional race discrimination. Instead, we see much evidence of institutional racism. This is evident both in criteria for diversion and pre-trial release that focus on family support and cooperation, and in efforts to provide the economically disadvantaged with resources at state expense that the more affluent can purchase on their own. Obtaining these resources exacts a price in terms of adjudications of delinquency and sentences to confinement."
With respect to the job market, Green cites two studies showing that black people are less likely to get job callbacks than comparable white people--in one case, when their resumes were otherwise identical except for having black/white sounding names. The other study showed that black former inmates were less likely than white ones to get job callbacks. This latter study reported a surprisingly large race effect, as the author put it: "The effect of race was very large, equal to or greater than the effect of a criminal record. Only 14 percent of black men without criminal records were called back, a proportion equal to or less than even than the number of whites with a criminal background."
Last's response begins with citing this ridiculously long report that says a lot about race, but after combing through it for a few minutes I found a quote that is directly relevant to what he is claiming, namely that "whites out-preformed blacks at every level of education." The quote in question is: "The average differences in prose, document, and quantitative proficiencies between White and Black adults are 49, 50, and 63 points, respectively. When level of education is taken into account, the average proficiency differences across the nine levels of education decrease to 36, 37, and 48 points, respectively. The remaining disparities in performance between White and Black adults may be the result of numerous factors. One plausible explanation is the variation in the quality of education available to these two populations. Differences in socioeconomic status are also likely to be a factor." Also worth pointing out is that the report cited by Last didn't distinguish between which kind of degree earned or where it was earned, whereas the study by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan used resumes that were identical not just in the level of degree earned but regarding what kind of degree was earned from which university.
Now what about Last's next claim that "blacks with graduate degrees performed worse on tests of functional literacy than whites who had completed some college but hadn’t gotten a 2 year degree. In quantitative reasoning whites who had graduated high-school and had never even been to college did just as well as blacks who had 4 year degrees"? Looking at Figure 1.7 in the report, the score for blacks with graduate degrees for prose (298, there is no category called "functional literacy", contrary to Last's assertion) is indeed lower than that for whites in the some college group for this metric (302). Looking at the same chart for "quantitative reasoning" shows that, as Last says, whites with high school diplomas only got a score of 279, while blacks with 4 year degrees got 280, which, though not exactly "just as well", is close enough for me. Nevertheless, the text bolded in the above paragraph undercuts Last's argument that racial differences in literacy within educational levels must reflect differences in inherent intelligence.
Green finishes by noting:
1. that schools attended by mostly minority students are less likely than those attended by mostly white students to offer Algebra 2 or chemistry.
2. that, as the ACP pointed out in 2010, "Overwhelming evidence shows that racial and ethnic minorities are prone to poorer quality health care than white Americans, even when factors such as insurance status are controlled."
3. that white people are much more likely to inherit money and land than black people are, which is a major contributor to racial disparities in wealth in the United States.
Last ends by trying to dismiss the three lines of evidence above by saying that "all three [above] data points might be explained by whites having a lower time preference than blacks. This means that they are more willing to put off immediate gratification to pursue long term rewards. There are several sources of evidence, including replicated experimental evidence, which indicate that such differences exist which I have discussed elsewhere. This could lead to whites making better students, and thus causing their schools to offer better classes, to whites being more likely to purchase insurance and engage in healthy behavior, and to whites saving more and so leaving behind a greater inheritance. I’m not saying that this is necessarily the cause of group differences. The point is that I can easily think of explanations, for which there exist some evidence, that could account for these data points and which have nothing to do with racism. And so inferring racism from them is not a valid argument." The blog post he links to cites studies showing that black people are, among other things, less likely to save money than white people, but one study he cites in the other post also says that "Mexican[s] as much as African Americans have lower saving rates than Whites, even after controlling for income and socio-demographic factors. Whereas these differences for Mexicans are due to lower flows of money into assets, they are explained by lower capital gains for Blacks."
Aside from that, the differences in quality of healthcare received have nothing to do with blacks allegedly making worse lifestyle choices than whites. And I should also note that with respect to schools, "black and Latino students are significantly more likely to have teachers with less experience who aren't paid as much as their colleagues in other schools." Research also shows that regardless of poverty level, schools (at least in Pennsylvania) with more white students get more funding than do schools with more black students. So the evidence suggests that black students are treated unfairly ona large scale b/c of their race, which contradicts Last's arguments about how they are more impulsive and that's as valid an explanation as racism. Also, poverty seems to be a factor here, and the reason for that is discussed in this above-linked PDF about the racial wealth gap.
In short, Green is much more right here than Last.
First: longer prison sentences for black men who were convicted of similar crimes as white men. To be specific, Green cites a Sentencing Commission report from 2013 that found that black men's prison sentences were "nearly 20% longer than those of white men for similar crimes in recent years." The same report stated, as Green did, that the racial sentencing gap has increased markedly in the past decade, or, more precisely, since 2005, when the Supreme Court's US v. Booker decision allowed judges to issue sentences outside of a range of guidelines set by the Commission. Yet, a study published the same year found no evidence that the Booker decision caused the racial disparity to increase or even that it had increased since then. But the question remains: do black people get longer prison sentences than white people, and if so, what is the cause of this difference? The Sentencing Commission showed that the answer to the first question is yes, but there are many other factors that must be accounted for before concluding that this difference is due to discrimination. As Last notes, "“similar” crimes are not identical crimes. It may be that the average assault committed by a black man is significantly worse than the average assault committed by a white man. " Well, perhaps a more thorough analysis better controlling for non-race factors would suit you better, no? In that case, I would like to direct you to a study published 2 years ago that found that "... initial case and defendant characteristics, including arrest offense and criminal history, can explain most of the large raw racial disparity in federal sentences, but significant gaps remain. Across the distribution, blacks receive sentences that are almost 10 percent longer than those of comparable whites arrested for the same crimes." Last also cites a very strange and under-publicized study published in 2013 that found that differences in arrest and incarceration rates between black and white males can be "completely accounted for after including covariates for self-reported lifetime violence and IQ." But Last doesn't mention that in one of the few discussions of this study I could find anywhere on the Internet, Rebecca Coffey noted that "If the data in this research prove to be sound, its conclusions about the criminal justice system are still off the mark. One needs to examine the criminal justice system itself in order to pronounce about its integrity. The real matter at hand, though, is what if the data about White vs. African Americans hold water? They suggest that, more than white men, African American men engage in violence—and, on average, their IQs are lower. Ouch. But, as the saying goes, “context is everything.” Decades of research have associated poor education with low scores on intelligence tests. Another mountain of research has shown that a lifetime of being routinely denied access to common courtesies, to just returns on one’s labors, and to whatever pot of gold may be at the end of life’s big rainbow could drive a man to drink, drugs, and maybe even violence."
Green also cites data that concludes that there is little difference between the rate at which white people and black people use illegal drugs, but that black people are 3x more likely to be arrested for drug possession. The figure he cited came from the 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The issue, according to critics, is that surveys are unreliable when it comes to racial differences in drug use because, as Last puts it, "As difficult as this is for some to accept, the truth is that blacks are more likely to lie about using drugs than whites are. This may sound like a harsh conclusion, but many studies done over several decades have shown that this is the case." Among these studies, according to Last, is one from 2005 that tested concordance between self-reported drug use and objectively measured test results. This study concluded that "the results replicate and extend a growing body of research suggesting that African Americans underreport substance use on surveys." However, there is more to the story. The same study notes that "The results showed that relative to African Americans, Whites had significantly larger odds of providing concordant responses; the point estimate for the odds ratio exceeds a value of 15. This large and significant effect is diminished by the entry of a single mediating variable in the model, SES [socioeconomic status]. With the addition of SES, the odds ratio contrasting Whites with African Americans is reduced to a nonsignificant point estimate value." That is, the racial difference may not be because the underreporters are black so much as because they are of a lower socioeconomic status than whites.
As far as police searches, Green notes that black people are more likely to be stopped and searched by police, even though certain kinds of contraband are found more often in white people than in black people. As evidence he cites a 2008 article by Ian Ayres, a Yale Law School professor, in which he describes a study he co-wrote looking at police stops in Los Angeles. Ayres summarizes his findings as follows:
For every 10,000 residents, about 3,400 more black people are stopped than whites, and 360 more Latinos are stopped than whites. Stopped blacks are 127% more likely to be frisked -- and stopped Latinos are 43% more likely to be frisked -- than stopped whites.
likely to be searched than stopped whites.
Stopped blacks are 76% more likely to be searched, and stopped Latinos are 16% more
Stopped blacks are 29% more likely to be arrested, and stopped Latinos are 32% more likely to be arrested than stopped whites.
Green's source for NYC is this link, which provides links to Excel files on the number of stop and frisks in NYC by race (and other factors that are irrelevant here). I downloaded the one for the last quarter of last year (the most recent available) and added up the # of stops by race. It looks like of the 3,793 people stopped in NYC in the 4th quarter of last year, 1,969, or about 51% were black, which is much higher than the share of the city's population that is black (22.8% as of 2013).
Now consider this: Although stopped blacks were 127% more likely to be frisked than stopped whites, they were 42.3% less likely to be found with a weapon after they were frisked, 25% less likely to be found with drugs and 33% less likely to be found with other contraband.
Last's response is as follows: "The fundamental problem with this data is simple: there are lots of reasons why blacks might be getting stopped more than whites that have nothing to do with racism. The use of this statistic to prove racism assumes that none of these alternatives are true. For instance, black people are far less likely than white people to own a car. So this argument assumes that walking around town doesn’t increase your chances of getting stopped. It also assumes that blacks don’t spend more time away from home than whites do. If you’re out of the house more, your chances of getting stopped by police will go up. It assumes that blacks don’t act more suspiciously than whites do. Blacks might be more likely to wear clothing associated with criminality, to loiter for long periods of time, etc. Green’s argument makes all of these assumptions but he provides evidence for none of them."
Now there is one problem with this first argument. It's entirely speculative, which is ironic because Last is accusing Green of making assertions without evidence, except for the one part about how black people are less likely to own cars. So what? Ayres' study looked at both traffic and pedestrian stops.
I became more optimistic when it came to the next part in Last's post, which reads:
It’s also important to note that these data sets come from two large cities: LA and New York. Both of these cities are disproportionately black relative to the rest of the United States. Because of this, and the relatively high violent crime rate among blacks in general, most people that commit violent crimes in these cities are probably black. And so black people will be more likely to match descriptions of perpetrators than whites will. This will also lead to blacks getting stopped by police more often.The problem is that, according to a 2007 study, even when you account for the rates at which different races commit crimes, blacks and Hispanics are still stopped at higher rates than whites. A more recent study backs this up, along with the finding from Ayres that blacks and Hispanics are less likely to have contraband, specifically weapons: "...stopped blacks and Hispanics were...less likely than similarly situated whites to possess weapons, indicative of racial bias in stop decisions."
Green next points out that of the 336 DNA exonerations of convicted criminals nationwide, 206 convicts were black. This works out to about 61%, which is way higher than the 13.2% of the general population of the US who are black as of July 1, 2014. Last's response:
This is a pretty weak argument. There are lots of reasons for which blacks might get falsely convicted more often than whites that have nothing to do with racism. For example, according to project innocence [sic: he means the Innocence Project], the organization that compiled the data Green referenced, not being able to afford a good lawyer is the most common cause of a false conviction. Blacks are poorer, on average, than whites are. So they probably can’t afford good lawyers. But that is no proof of racism.Edwin Grimsley, who actually works for the Innocence Project, takes a different approach in a 2012 article on their website. He argues that "Despite numerous studies depicting similar levels of participation by Whites, African-Americans, and Hispanics in non-violent crimes – notably drugs, weapon possession, and speeding - Bureau of Justice statistics show minorities are arrested and incarcerated at higher rates for these crimes." Why does this matter in this context? Because, as Grimsley continues, "Cumulative non-violent arrests can lead to future suspicion for violent crimes, as seen in the stories of those exonerated by DNA testing. A number of our clients who have been exonerated through DNA testing had their mugshot photos entered into a photo array lineup culminating in a misidentification. For example, Rickie Johnson of Louisiana had a mugshot on file because of a misdemeanor traffic violation. The victim identified his mugshot and he was later erroneously convicted of aggravated rape." Later, Grimsley notes: "nearly 75% of the DNA exoneration cases involve an eyewitness misidentification – approximately 42% of which are cross-racial misidentifications. Research studies have shown how victims or witnesses can have difficulty identifying facial characteristics of a dissimilar race. Also, the "blacks are poorer" thing undercuts Last's "racism doesn't exist" arguments, as I will discuss below.
Because minorities are more likely to be arrested as juveniles, false confessions and fictitious incriminating statements are more prone to occur. Juveniles are especially vulnerable to giving false confessions because they’re easier to manipulate."
So it seems that at least, the data is consistent with racial bias being at least a major contributor to the exceptionally high rates of false convictions among black people.
Although his arguments don't stand up to much scrutiny, Last is certainly good at inserting irrelevant invective and speculation, like this little nugget:
Additionally, activist groups that get cases reexamined might be more likely to help black prisoners than white ones. This too could explain why blacks are more likely than whites to be exonerated by DNA evidence. One might argue that this is a form of racism, such groups would be discriminating against white people after all. But it’s obviously not the kind of racism that Green has in mind.No evidence provided, of course, so it can be dismissed without evidence too.
Green's next point is that black kids are more likely to be tried as adults--and sentenced to life in prison--than their white counterparts. His source--a 2012 article in the New York Times-- doesn't say much about these disparities, except to provide a link to back up the authors' claim that 84% of juveniles sentenced to life in prison for non-homicide charges were black in 2009. The link doesn't seem to say this, at least not in the abstract, but maybe it's somewhere in the full body of the article. There is, however, more evidence that people are more likely to recommend that a juvenile be transferred to adult court if the juvenile in question is black.
Last's response is to trot out the old (and true) talking point about how black adults commit more violent crime than do their white counterparts, arguing that for this reason, we should expect that "black juveniles [are] simply more likely than white juveniles to commit serious crimes or to have histories of crime." Maybe, but what if you were to look only at black and white juveniles who were convicted of murder, so they committed the same crime, and then see if there are racial differences between the black and white members of this group? As it happens, no surprise, this has been done, and 1/8 black juveniles convicted of murder will be sentenced to life in prison, as compared with 1/13 white kids convicted thereof. Also backing up claims of racial bias on this point is the fact that, according to a 2000 study, "African American, Latino and Asian American youth are significantly more likely to be transferred to adult court and sentenced to incarceration than white youths who
commit comparable crimes. Compared to white youths, minority youths are 2.8 times more likely to be arrested for a violent crime, 6.2 times more likely to wind up in adult court, and 7 times more likely to be sent to prison by adult court."
Another 2000 study showed that in California, "Hispanic youth were 6 times more likely, and African American youth were 12 times more likely than White youth to be transferred to adult court. Minority youth did have higher arrest rates, but examination of the arrest categories suggests little reason (such as greater number of violent crimes) for the racial disparity in terms of transfers to adult court."
Last also argues that black children mature faster than white ones do, citing multiple sources, the first of which is a 1967 study by Arthur Jensen. I looked everywhere in that paper for mentions of anything Last attributed to it (which is that "Even as infants blacks posses [sic] brain waves and skeletal features which suggest greater physical maturity.") and couldn't find anything that matches what he claims. But he then makes up for this deficit and cites a story about this study, which found that black people age faster biologically than white people do, and this story which says that black girls on average go through puberty .9 years earlier than do their white counterparts. I personally consider this less relevant than the actual criminal history or characteristics of the crime for which a given juvenile was sentenced, because this is what should, ideally, determine the way in which minorities are treated.
I will close this section by quoting from a 1996 study on this subject:
"Nonwhite youths referred for delinquent acts are more likely than comparable white youths to be recommended for petition to court, to be held in pre-adjudicatory detention, to be formally processed in juvenile court, and to receive the most formal or the most restrictive judicial dispositions."
Later, the authors state:
"Our qualitative findings support several interpretations. Intentional race discrimination does not appear to play a major role in accounting for racial disparities in processing. Although some officials whom we interviewed believed that some justice officials were motivated by prejudicial attitudes, few recounted specific instances of racially motivated actions. Without question, there are some justice officials who hold and act upon racially prejudicial attitudes. As long as race bias exists in the general culture, it would be surprising indeed if it did not operate through individuals in the juvenile justice system as well. However, we are not inclined to conclude that the disparities we observed are largely attributable to intentional race discrimination. Instead, we see much evidence of institutional racism. This is evident both in criteria for diversion and pre-trial release that focus on family support and cooperation, and in efforts to provide the economically disadvantaged with resources at state expense that the more affluent can purchase on their own. Obtaining these resources exacts a price in terms of adjudications of delinquency and sentences to confinement."
With respect to the job market, Green cites two studies showing that black people are less likely to get job callbacks than comparable white people--in one case, when their resumes were otherwise identical except for having black/white sounding names. The other study showed that black former inmates were less likely than white ones to get job callbacks. This latter study reported a surprisingly large race effect, as the author put it: "The effect of race was very large, equal to or greater than the effect of a criminal record. Only 14 percent of black men without criminal records were called back, a proportion equal to or less than even than the number of whites with a criminal background."
Last's response begins with citing this ridiculously long report that says a lot about race, but after combing through it for a few minutes I found a quote that is directly relevant to what he is claiming, namely that "whites out-preformed blacks at every level of education." The quote in question is: "The average differences in prose, document, and quantitative proficiencies between White and Black adults are 49, 50, and 63 points, respectively. When level of education is taken into account, the average proficiency differences across the nine levels of education decrease to 36, 37, and 48 points, respectively. The remaining disparities in performance between White and Black adults may be the result of numerous factors. One plausible explanation is the variation in the quality of education available to these two populations. Differences in socioeconomic status are also likely to be a factor." Also worth pointing out is that the report cited by Last didn't distinguish between which kind of degree earned or where it was earned, whereas the study by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan used resumes that were identical not just in the level of degree earned but regarding what kind of degree was earned from which university.
Now what about Last's next claim that "blacks with graduate degrees performed worse on tests of functional literacy than whites who had completed some college but hadn’t gotten a 2 year degree. In quantitative reasoning whites who had graduated high-school and had never even been to college did just as well as blacks who had 4 year degrees"? Looking at Figure 1.7 in the report, the score for blacks with graduate degrees for prose (298, there is no category called "functional literacy", contrary to Last's assertion) is indeed lower than that for whites in the some college group for this metric (302). Looking at the same chart for "quantitative reasoning" shows that, as Last says, whites with high school diplomas only got a score of 279, while blacks with 4 year degrees got 280, which, though not exactly "just as well", is close enough for me. Nevertheless, the text bolded in the above paragraph undercuts Last's argument that racial differences in literacy within educational levels must reflect differences in inherent intelligence.
Green finishes by noting:
1. that schools attended by mostly minority students are less likely than those attended by mostly white students to offer Algebra 2 or chemistry.
2. that, as the ACP pointed out in 2010, "Overwhelming evidence shows that racial and ethnic minorities are prone to poorer quality health care than white Americans, even when factors such as insurance status are controlled."
3. that white people are much more likely to inherit money and land than black people are, which is a major contributor to racial disparities in wealth in the United States.
Last ends by trying to dismiss the three lines of evidence above by saying that "all three [above] data points might be explained by whites having a lower time preference than blacks. This means that they are more willing to put off immediate gratification to pursue long term rewards. There are several sources of evidence, including replicated experimental evidence, which indicate that such differences exist which I have discussed elsewhere. This could lead to whites making better students, and thus causing their schools to offer better classes, to whites being more likely to purchase insurance and engage in healthy behavior, and to whites saving more and so leaving behind a greater inheritance. I’m not saying that this is necessarily the cause of group differences. The point is that I can easily think of explanations, for which there exist some evidence, that could account for these data points and which have nothing to do with racism. And so inferring racism from them is not a valid argument." The blog post he links to cites studies showing that black people are, among other things, less likely to save money than white people, but one study he cites in the other post also says that "Mexican[s] as much as African Americans have lower saving rates than Whites, even after controlling for income and socio-demographic factors. Whereas these differences for Mexicans are due to lower flows of money into assets, they are explained by lower capital gains for Blacks."
Aside from that, the differences in quality of healthcare received have nothing to do with blacks allegedly making worse lifestyle choices than whites. And I should also note that with respect to schools, "black and Latino students are significantly more likely to have teachers with less experience who aren't paid as much as their colleagues in other schools." Research also shows that regardless of poverty level, schools (at least in Pennsylvania) with more white students get more funding than do schools with more black students. So the evidence suggests that black students are treated unfairly ona large scale b/c of their race, which contradicts Last's arguments about how they are more impulsive and that's as valid an explanation as racism. Also, poverty seems to be a factor here, and the reason for that is discussed in this above-linked PDF about the racial wealth gap.
In short, Green is much more right here than Last.
No correlation apparent between strict state gun laws and homicide rates
I tried to see, as Eugene Volokh once did, whether strict state gun laws are associated with lower homicide rates. Overall homicide rates, not, as has been done before, gun homicides only. Below is a chart of my results. On the x-axis is how strong each state's gun laws are according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and on the y-axis is the average homicide rate of all the states with each gun law score (of which there were 9 possible ones, ranging from A- to F, as detailed on the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence's website linked above. I converted these scores into numbers from 1, corresponding to F, to 9, corresponding to A-.) The homicide rates were taken from the Death Penalty Information Center. As you can see there is no positive correlation at all between these two variables. Looking at them using Excel and typing in "=correl" in an adjacent cell, it seems like there is, if anything, a slight negative correlation here. This peculiar result seems to be in line with previous analyses on this subject, e.g. by Factcheck.org, although not with respect to suicide, where stricter laws are associated with lower overall rates.
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