I saw this link posted of a Huffington Post page that is parroting a Media Matters claim that O’Reilly is using fuzzy math, but I don’t get it…
Most of you probably caught why this is allegedly a dumb thing to say right away, but when I saw it I was left with a big “wtf?” until the person who posted it explained the accusation to me…
I commented on the posted item asking “what evidence do you have that countries with higher populations do NOT experience vastly more fatal accidents and fatal crimes?”. Then I received more understanding on what exactly Media Matters and the HuffPo are charging:
Stephanie: Did you watch the clip? He says that America’s life expectancy is lower than Canada because “America has 10 times as many people which translates into 10 times as many accidents, crimes…”
So what he is saying is that is this. Say Canada has 100 people and 5 die due to accidents and crimes. “America has ten times as many people and ten times as many accidents and crime”. Therefore, America would have 1000 people and 50 would die from accidents and crimes. Thus 5% die from accidents and crimes in both countries. His argument, therefore, makes no sense, as he argues that America has a lower life expectancy because the same proportion of people dies from accidents and crime in America as inCanada.
Ah, I see now… The 3 of them are creating a straw man argument by deleting the context of the original statement which is right there in the video in order falsely impugn O’Reilly for making an alleged fallacious statement.
The email noted “life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA” and O’Reilly responded that this is to be expected because the USA suffers higher car accidents and deadly crime and not lack of medical care. No argument based on the statistical fallacy you describe was made because no statistics were given. O’Reilly is speaking colloquially, and not citing “10 times” or “10 percent” in any official capacity, but rather is making an astute and accurate observation that America’s life expectancy is lower (78 vs Canada’s 80) due to factors that have nothing to do with either countries health care system. He attributes the higher death by car and crime number to higher population, leading me to ask what makes