Fun with statistics
Part of a staggeringly complacent statement from Vernon 'hokey' Coaker:
"Homicide remains thankfully rare: the number of homicides has fallen from 769 in 2005/06 to 757 in 2006/07 with the risk of being a victim of homicide one in 13.7 million".
First off, that fall is statistically insignificant, and hardly worth trumpeting as a fall. And secondly, where did he get that figure of 1 in 13.7m from? Let us say that the population is roughly 60m, because it is. I make 60m / 757 a 1 in 79000 chance. Still not ideal odds, admittedly, but rather better than those for Russian Roulette. Unless I have got something horribly wrong, Big Vern seems to think the UK's population is 10.3 billion, or roughly that of the world, and half again. No wonder it is murder getting a seat on the train.
(Meanwhile, Big Vern's website visitors are a dim lot - asked whether 'Cannabis be reclassified from a class C drug to a class B drug', an impressive 31% thought it was worth clicking 'not sure'....)
"Homicide remains thankfully rare: the number of homicides has fallen from 769 in 2005/06 to 757 in 2006/07 with the risk of being a victim of homicide one in 13.7 million".
First off, that fall is statistically insignificant, and hardly worth trumpeting as a fall. And secondly, where did he get that figure of 1 in 13.7m from? Let us say that the population is roughly 60m, because it is. I make 60m / 757 a 1 in 79000 chance. Still not ideal odds, admittedly, but rather better than those for Russian Roulette. Unless I have got something horribly wrong, Big Vern seems to think the UK's population is 10.3 billion, or roughly that of the world, and half again. No wonder it is murder getting a seat on the train.
(Meanwhile, Big Vern's website visitors are a dim lot - asked whether 'Cannabis be reclassified from a class C drug to a class B drug', an impressive 31% thought it was worth clicking 'not sure'....)
Labels: crime and punishment, fun with statistics
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on Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 1:52 pm.
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Unless this is the government's sneaky way of revealing the scale of illegal immigration perhaps he didn't mean per year (who would use that old-fashioned measure!).
Maybe he meant per passenger mile on UK roads or maybe per half a day.
He got it by confusing the actual figure published today which is 13.7 killings per 1 million population....
I just sent him an email.
"This is the sort of attention to detail that forgets to have a referendum before selling the country down the river."
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