Sloppy Statistics

This article highlights in Evangelicalism at large a problem that I'm seeing and commenting on in Fundamentalism in particular. There is more desire to prove a point than to be scrupulous about being accurate. Bradley Wright comments often on sloppy statistics used by (and about) Christians as well.


Here's another, more recent article on the subject.

I see this all over the place, and it's become even easier in the world of email forwards. It goes back beyond emails, though, and runs far deeper. Back in college, we'd have well-known missions speakers come and address us, and they'd often give us numbers and statistics. (Some things never change.)

On the one hand, people proclaimed that all the missionaries are coming off the field - hardly any go back for a second term, and the long-term ones are all getting old, coming home, and dying. They would give numbers and statistics depicting the decline of world-wide missions.

Yet on the other hand, I heard statistical complaints that it's incredibly difficult to get support for new missionaries, in part because there are so many competing for the missions support out there!

Unless missions support is drastically decreasing across the country (and I have seen no statistics suggesting that), both statements can't be true. Either we have fewer missionaries going out, which would mean less competition among the remaining ones for the available support, or we have more missionaries going out, which means foreign missions is increasing, not decreasing. Yet those assertions are both often supported with statistics, and ironically, sometimes it seems that they're both made by the same people!


I'm not saying this to bash missiologists, much less missionaries. That's just one of many examples where I've seen statistics applied in sloppy ways. Really, it's nowhere near as bad among Christians in general I know as it is among the politically-involved in general that I know. (Though some make the case that Christians tend to be among the worst at abusing statistics.)

But then, Christians ought not be the world warmed over - we should be something radically different. Being like the world but not quite as bad... this tells me we've gotten very sloppy about truth in general, and about statistics in particular.

Now, I don't think this comes from an evil desire to deceive. I think the thought process runs something like, "My position on this issue is correct, and what I want people to do about it is right. Therefore, any statistic that supports my position MUST be true, since my position is correct. People who take my position must be honest, because we are on the side of right - so why should I waste time verifying statistics when instead I could be proclaiming the truth they support and urging people to the action they endorse?"

If an action is according to Scripture (such as going into all the world and preaching the gospel), then feel free to urge people toward it. If the Bible says something, you don't need statistics to prove it - the Bible itself is truth. But if you're going to use statistics, please do what you can to make sure they're reliable. Otherwise, you undermine your reliability in every area.