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Apr. 13th, 2009 02:00 pmSome of you have heard my rants about Greenpeace. In some fairly abstract sense, I want to like Greenpeace. But there was their whole FUD campaign against golden rice . I mean, golden rice for crying out loud. I am not a supporter of knee-jerk opposition to genetic engineering of food plants. (Though I oppose many of the the instances of genetic engineering of food crops, I think the whole genetic engineering = dangerous campaign is stupid.) But they launched a specific campaign against golden rice that included a lot of disinformation and scare talk and... fail.
Oh, I should mention that most of what annoys me is that I'm on their call list. (Though I've taken to getting their call center folks really pissed off about golden rice and not giving them money, which is an amusing hobby when I have time.)
Today they sent me their latest scare mail, that starts off with this:
Um, okay now, population is currently estimated to be something like 305 million. So unless their is a correlation between the recipients of this mail and people who live downwind from chemical facillities (and their could be, if for instance, there is a bias towards urban areas, but they not only provided no data they said nothing to suggest that this was what they were looking at) no.
I am not expecting everyone to become statisticians. (Though I think stats should be a required course in highschool. That, and civics, which should include a good grounding in constitutional law. But really, stats first. Life would be so much less annoying.) But this is the kind of understanding of probability I would expect from the average fourth grader.
Oh, I should mention that most of what annoys me is that I'm on their call list. (Though I've taken to getting their call center folks really pissed off about golden rice and not giving them money, which is an amusing hobby when I have time.)
Today they sent me their latest scare mail, that starts off with this:
Over 100 million Americans live or work in what the Environmental Protection Agency calls a "vulnerability zone" - in other words downwind from a chemical facility. Chances are, you are one of them.
Um, okay now, population is currently estimated to be something like 305 million. So unless their is a correlation between the recipients of this mail and people who live downwind from chemical facillities (and their could be, if for instance, there is a bias towards urban areas, but they not only provided no data they said nothing to suggest that this was what they were looking at) no.
I am not expecting everyone to become statisticians. (Though I think stats should be a required course in highschool. That, and civics, which should include a good grounding in constitutional law. But really, stats first. Life would be so much less annoying.) But this is the kind of understanding of probability I would expect from the average fourth grader.
