I found a news publication stating that the high murder rate in the South is a key factor behind America's high homicide rate in comparison with other democratic, industrialized nations; states topping the murder rate were: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina.
But the article was posted in 1998 - perhaps it's no longer accurate. So, I checked the FBI's most current statistics. The South still had the highest violent crime rate. In fact, while the national violent crime rate per 100,000 stood at about 466, the ONLY region that was above the national rate was the South. The South's rate? It was just over 549, or about fifteen percent above the national average. And the same thing applied to the murder rate; the South was the only region higher than the national average, at about sixteen percent above the national average.
And then there's the death penalty. This table shows that every year since 1990, the states that do not have the death penalty have had lower murder rates than the states that do; this page from the same site shows that almost all of the states without the death penalty are blue states.
What part of the country is the reddest, the strongest against gun control, the strongest for the death penalty, and has the highest murder rate? The South.
Clearly, there is a correlation between living in a safer place, and whether one resides in a blue state or a red state. It's not true in every case, but generally speaking the correlation is true.
But the conservatives stand for family values! We hear this all the time from the right-wing pundits and Republican politicians, so I checked the divorce rate by state; once more, we find the numbers show something different. The divorce rate in red states is generally higher than in blue states, even if we don't count traditionally red-state Nevada.
Clearly, there is a correlation between the success of marriages within the population, and whether that population resides in a blue state or a red state.
Good grief! Are the liberals better for America than the conservatives in every case? Maybe not. I checked this site concerning illicit drug use, and it seems that, generally speaking, drug use is more prevalent in blue states than in red states.
Clearly there is a correlation between the likelihood of use of illicit drugs, and whether one resides in a blue state or a red state.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Clavos
This entire article is a logical fallacy:
"Correlation proves causation."
As any student of logic can readily recognize, correlation does not in fact, imply causation.
This is a simplistic and totally erroneous dissertation.
2 - zingzing
who says the world is logical? and how does logic change facts?
3 - Clavos
Nobody says logic "changes facts," zing; in fact, it doesn't. What it does do is point out that facts in and of themselves do not prove that there is a connection between a circumstance ("fact") and a result.
But you knew that.
4 - zingzing
you see maggots crawling on rotting beef enough times, you know that flies come from cows.
of course, given a little more thought, you know that rotting beef doesn't create maggots, but that maggots a certainly going to thrive in rotting beef.
5 - Clavos
Put it any way you like, zing.
It's still a fallacy, and this article proves (a claim made in its title) nothing.
6 - zingzing
"maggots aRE certainly..."
7 - zingzing
well, put it any way you like, but a logical fallacy doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusions reached are false.
8 - roger nowosielski
zing, even if you're right, it's no merit of the argument, then. Sorry. But I haven't read the article yet, so I'm speaking prematurely no doubt.
9 - Clavos
well, put it any way you like, but a logical fallacy doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusions reached are false.
Ah but it does. For, if they're not proven to be true, they are false until proven otherwise.
10 - zingzing
eh? because something is not proven true, it is false? i'm pretty sure that doesn't follow.
11 - roger nowosielski
Well, it may be true but it doesn't have the status of a conclusion. You may insist on its truth as a premise.
12 - zingzing
and that's the point i'm trying to make. even if there is a logical fallacy in the argument presented, it doesn't mean that it's false.
13 - roger nowosielski
Correct, except that it doesn't follow from the argument. Many things may well be true on intuitive or another level (like axioms, for example); the question of "proof" is another matter.
14 - Clavos
A logical fallacy in an argument by definition invalidates the argument.
15 - Clavos
Or put another way: a logical fallacy in an argument by definition makes the argument fallacious.
16 - Clavos
From merriam-Webster Online:
"
fallacious
One entry found.
Main Entry:
fal·la·cious Listen to the pronunciation of fallacious
Pronunciation:
fə-ˈlā-shəs
Function:
adjective
Date:
1509
1 : embodying a fallacy 2 : tending to deceive or mislead : delusive
â€" fal·la·cious·ly adverb
â€" fal·la·cious·ness noun"
17 - Jon Sobel
Despite the inherent logical fallacy in this article, the weight of evidence brought to bear is extremely suggestive. It's a like a whole lot of circumstantial evidence brought against an accused criminal. It's not ironclad proof, but it might be good enough.
The challenge posed by all the evidence amassed in the article should be taken up by conservatives. The challenge is: if conservative policies do NOT cause all these failures, then what DOES lie behind the correlation? Seems to me that morality would require conservatives to address this, even though logic does not.
18 - roger nowosielski
And morality, Jon, should be the conservatives' strong point, so we're told.
By the way, my lawyer friend tells me that many cases are decided on circumstantial evidence - many more, at least, than we're led to believe. But we have a resident attorney on the premises, so we might solicit his opinion.
19 - Edward Lunny
Interesting crime data, those states,or districts, that have higher than average violent crime rates also tend to have particularly violent urban areas. Look at Washington, DC for instance, a rate more than triple the national average. Included in the south as well, and pumping up those southern numbers. But, surely not a conservative locale by any stretch. I wonder what would happen to your assertions if we removed the violent urban areas from their respective states. Particularly since urban areas tend to be liberal bastions. Remove Chicago from the Illinois numbers, Detroit from the Michigan numbers, New Orleans from the Louisiana numbers etc. Would your analysis stand ? Look thru the data at the more violent states and it becomes apparent that violent states tend to have violent cities, Boston, Massachusetts and Baltimore, Maryland compared to Charleston, West Virginia or Louisville, Kentucky. I think that you need to look closer than state numbers to get an accurate, or more accurate, perspective on crime versus state of residence correlation. In your rush to assign specifics to ideological viewpoints I think you haven't analysed the data closely enough. You have also, it seems to me confused correlation and causation ,as posted above, a mistake that can be catastophic in effect.
20 - roger nowosielski
Correlation does not imply causation (from Wiki).
If you read further on: "Correlation is not causation, but it sure is a hint."
Or, to put in in other words, it suggests a relationship and initiates the search for causes.
21 - handyguy
Even if these are 'only' correlations, they are certainly interesting correlations. Particularly the death penalty ones.
They don't 'prove' anything specific about politics. But they are suggestive about the fallaciousness of some conservative assumptions.
And saying, in effect, the thesis is wrong, therefore I will find the logical fallacy that led to this self-evidently wrong conclusion; then I don't even have to discuss the evidence and facts cited -- well, saying all that is less an argument than it is a conversation-killer.
Glenn has provided some interesting items to talk about. I don't agree with his conclusion either, but we can still talk about the material in the article.
22 - Clavos
And saying, in effect, the thesis is wrong, therefore I will find the logical fallacy that led to this self-evidently wrong conclusion; then I don't even have to discuss the evidence and facts cited -- well, saying all that is less an argument than it is a conversation-killer.
Did I say that, handy?
23 - roger nowosielski
Glenn,
Very interesting argument, and I didn't put it in quotation marks because it is an argument, in a manner of speaking, logical fallacy notwithstanding. Besides, I did not notice, on first read, that you were particularly insistent on suggesting a causal effect. Leaving it in the realm of correlations is the safe mode. But you do suggest (or at least hint at) a cause (see my #20) - namely, conservative policies. Which, in effect, has the status of posing a hypothesis (just as we do in hard or soft/social sciences). The rest is up to the empirical observations - whether your hypothesis is sound or not. And the correlations you do cite argue to the effect that you have the makings of a strong case.
In short, a very sound social research procedure, and no one can fault you for that. The misunderstanding arose on account of misreading your "argument" as though it were some kind of logical/deductive argument - in which case the charge of logical fallacy would apply. But since that wasn't the nature of your article, I believe you're on safe ground.
I would look, however, more closely at the objections raised by Edward in #19, which may or may not affect the "crime" dimension/factor of your presentation (but that's only one out of six, I believe). Other than that, great job and plenty food for thought.
Roger
PS: Questioning the patriotism of the conservatives would be one thing I'd personally abstain from. The matter of what is in the country's best interests - not to mention in the individual's best interests - is something Socrates devoted his entire life to, and with mixed results I might add. You don't need that.
Let the facts speak for themselves.
24 - Arch Conservative
Ed Lunny?
Sounds like the name of a serial killer to me.
25 - zingzing
roger: "Correct, except that it doesn't follow from the argument."
my god, you must be kidding. i never argued about the word "proof" in the title. i argued that a logical fallacy does not make something false. a logical fallacy has no bearing upon reality. i agree that this article doesn't necessarily prove anything, but for clavos to dismiss the entirety of the article based on that fact is fairly silly.
what next, o.j. was innocent?
"Many things may well be true on intuitive or another level (like axioms, for example); the question of "proof" is another matter."
exactly.
clavos: "A logical fallacy in an argument by definition invalidates the argument."
an an argument does not change reality. you're invalidating glenn's essay, but not the actual facts that he presents.