Probability and School Shootings

Factual Questions
1

Something that’s been on Dr. J’s mind lately, that I wouldn’t mind discussing:

It seems to me that everyone is caught up in asking “Why” whenever something goes wrong anymore. School shootings are the best example; bad parenting, guns, Ritalin, and Marylin Manson are but a few of the evils that obviously cause this to happen to sweet, innocent youth. But here’s my argument:

1.) An extremely small but finite number of teenagers are simply innately sociopathic; that is, they would go shooting their classmates no matter what.

2.) Another small percentage (probably not as small) will be affected by movies, books, music, video games, etc. in strange ways. I mean, it’s possible (apparently) to read The Catcher in the Rye and get the clear message that you should kill a Beatle. So while the vast, vast, vast majority of Doom players will not shoot up their class as a result, it’s possible that some will.

3.) There are a lot of people out there these days. A lot more than there used to be. And probability tells us that the larger the sample size, the more often rare things show up.

So it’s not that these things are more likely these days percent-wise, it’s that there are more people at that unfortunate end of the bell curve. It isn’t guns, Marilyn Manson, or Doom that is responsible for the “current tide of violence”, it’s statistics.

And I demand we file a class-action suit against the makers of statistics!

Dr. J

PS: If I ever go on a murder spree, I’m going to claim that I was influenced by hours and hours of “The Andy Griffith Show”.

2

I would have to agree with Dr. J’s reasoning. While the absolute number of such events are increasing, the percentage of violent incidents in the schools is actually dropping.
Since the population is larger than it was in the 1950s, then one would expect such rare occurrences to become more frequent absolutely despite a drop proportionally.

“[He] beat his fist down upon the table and hurt his hand and became so
further enraged… that he beat his fist down upon the table even harder and
hurt his hand some more.” – Joseph Heller’s Catch-22

3

Funny.
Not to start a flame war or turn this political, but it’s pretty much what pro-gun organizations have been claiming for a while.

A question, Dr. J:
Did you arrive at your conclusion through reason and common sense, or did you study statistics and such?

<FONT COLOR=“GREEN”>ExTank</FONT>
“Either way, population control=crime control.”

4

Oh no, I actually agree with the pro-gun people! No, I haven’t seen any numbers that support the idea–I was rather hoping someone else had.

What made me start thinking about it was the wrestler who got killed a few weeks ago when his harness came undone. I read more than a few stories asking “how such a thing could happen”, and blaming the climate of professional wrestling. (Seriously.) It was a fluke, but no one can accept flukes anymore.

Our ideas of probability just don’t mean what they used to. Take the ultimate expression of the outside chance–“one in a million”. If something happens to one person out of a million, it will happen to 350 people in America, and four people right here in Kentucky.

So we hear about things that happen one time out of a million and we think that there has to be some reason for them. We’ve forgotten the lesson the 80’s taught us, via T-shirts and bumper stickers–“sh*t happens”.

Dr. J

5

I don’t think you take the argument far enough, DrJ. OK, let’s posit that upbringing and family environment have no (or minimal) impact, and that a certain percentage of people are just born wired wrong, murderously looney, driven to kill… it’s statistics, rather than any other factor.

So? Is that a rationale for inaction?

You can make the same arguments about cars. My father-in-law tells about driving in the 20s, when there was no licensing, very few stoplights or stopsigns, no speed limits. The number of automobile accidents increased as the number of automobiles increased, it’s statistics. Does that mean we shouldn’t try to regulate and license? Sure, there’s a portion of collisions that will happen every year, does that mean we shouldn’t install seat belts?

You can make the same argument about cancer. More and more people are dying of cancer – it’s statistics, people have to die of something, and many other causes of death have been reduced (by antiobiotics, for instance). Does that mean we should shrug our shoulders and not try to cure cancer?

By analogy: OK, so a portion of people will go looney and kill othersw. Does that mean we shouldn’t try to limit their access to nuclear weapons? to hand grenades? Does that mean we shouldn’t have early detection (and perhaps treatment) programs available, to find these people BEFORE they climb the belltower with the rifle?

The argument that “it’s merely statistics” is often used as implying that society has no ability to reduce the incidence or impact. Hogwash, says I.

6

… as an afterthought, you could apply the same “it’s only statistics” argument to almost any societal problem. Homelessness, for instance. Pedophilia. Child abuse. There are a certain percentage of people who are mentally “wired” to abuse their children; it’s only got more publicity nowadays because the population has grown.

As a statement of fact and statistics, OK. As an excuse to not tackle these societal problems, BS.

7

In the interest of throwing a gallon or two of gasoline on what will surely become and angry, flame-ridden thread, one of the best indicators of future violence is abuse of and cruelty towards animals; yet when one of the organizations to which I belong, PETA, points this out and asks for harsher penalties and/or therapy for obvious animal abusers, we are dismissed as nutcases.

Flame away.

8

CK, I didn’t really say it was a rationale for inaction (and if I did, I didn’t mean it). I’m simply saying that statistically unlikely things happen more often these days, and people believe that they are on the rise directly due to a societal ill.

For instance, I don’t know how national it got, but the parents of the kids who were killed in Paducah are suing the makers of “The Basketball Diaries”, Doom, and I forget who else, becuase they believe they led directly to the shootings. I personally believe they have their cause-and-effect relationship mixed up–kids who will shoot their classmates are more likely to play Doom and listen to KMFDM. But you hear them make the already tenuous argument that “such events have been on the rise as this filth has pervaded our culture”. I maintain that aside from being a fallacious argument, it’s simply not mathematically true.

I absolutely agree with you that these kids should be identified early and helped. In fact, I think this is the problem–instead of looking to the individual kids and their problems, people look to Marilyn Manson, Ritalin, and two-income parenting and try to establish a linear cause-and-effect relationship where there really isn’t one.

And please, let’s not turn this into a gun argument–there are other threads for that, and there’s not much left of that dead horse to flog anyway.

Dr. J

PS: No flames here, pldennison–the quickest and surest way to a new corn chute would be to mess with my cat.

9

DoctorJ said:

I think you hit the nail on the head. I know this is somewhat off-topic, but you can see the same thing in a lot of lawsuits claiming “X did this to me.” The most well-known are the lawsuits against the manufacturers of silicone breast implants. Despite the fact that scientific analysis has shown that silicone breast implants don’t cause connective tissue diseases, etc., the lawsuits proceeded, some were won, and some were settled just to end it already. Why? Because some woman got breast implants and then got a connective tissue disease. Obviously they are related, right? Wrong. If you look at the statistics, there is no difference in contracting these diseases between women with implants and women without. It just seems that these days, as you have noted, if something bad happens, there must be somebody to blame for it.

“I don’t believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate
I don’t believe in forever or love as a mystical state
I don’t believe in the stars or the planets
Or angels watching from above” – Neil Peart, RUSH, “Ghost of a Chance”

10

Sorry, DrJ, I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth, it’s just that I’ve heard that argument too often as a cause for inaction.

I agree with you that one of the growing ills of society is a refusal to accept responsiblity or to accept consequences. The parents are suing some toy manufacturers because they (the parents) were too blind to see what was happening to their kids? Great. Just great. Leads one to despair.

11

Sorry, DrJ, I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth, it’s just that I’ve heard that argument too often as a cause for inaction.

I agree with you that one of the growing ills of society is a refusal to accept responsiblity or to accept consequences. The parents are suing some toy manufacturers because they (the parents) were too blind to see what was happening to their kids? Great. Just great. Leads one to despair.

12

quote:

By analogy: OK, so a portion of people will go looney and kill othersw. Does that mean
we shouldn’t try to limit their access to nuclear weapons? to hand grenades? Does that
mean we shouldn’t have early detection (and perhaps treatment) programs available,
to find these people BEFORE they climb the belltower with the rifle?

pldennison writes:

In the interest of throwing a gallon or two of gasoline on what will surely become and angry, flame-ridden thread, one of the best indicators of future violence is abuse of and cruelty towards animals; yet when one of the organizations to which I belong, PETA, points this out and asks for harsher penalties and/or therapy for obvious animal abusers, we are dismissed as nutcases.

Flame away.

Now get ready everyone, especially pldennison.

I agree with this idea pldennison.

I would guess that a lot of boys start out torturing animals and later go to hurting people. So, if there were stricter laws that might help. But the statement of giving help to animal abusers is a good idea.

If someone knows of a person young or old that is abusing animals, then some proactive efforts might not only help animals but keep them from hurting people later as well.

I do not want to put words in pldennison’s mouth, but if that is what his is suggesting then for once I agree with him.

Jeffery

13

DrJ;

But IS it a statistical effect? How many school shootings were there each year in the last thirty years? What is the average? What the s.d.? It seems like there’s been an awful LOT of shootings lately. What is the probability this recent spate is a fluctuation?

Of course, it is difficult to answer these questions because the events are not independent - there are copycats, and even just people who take their …I guess “inspiration” is the closest word… from those who have done it before. In other words, there are almost certainly SOME social factors, including previous shootings themselves, which are affecting this behavior. I agree that the lawsuits that were mentioned are ridiculous, as is the search for an “answer” for the wrestler whose harness broke; but I’m not sure the school shootings = statistical effect holds up.

We need more data to decide this. Anyone know where we might find it?

14

Please leave Marilyn Manson out of it. I am so sick of hearing people throw that name out every time there’s one of these discussions. Harris and Klebold didn’t even listen to his music, for cryin’ out loud. And furthermore, even if he was the key to everything that’s wrong with American society today (which he is not), why would the people who hate him so much want to keep giving him free publicity?

Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green