[Let’s measure the time it takes for a lot of people to agree that I was right. What follows was written more than four years ago. Are you there yet?]
MORE EVIDENCE THAT PANDEMICS ARE NOT FUNNY
It is time to get real about a word: Proof. It has a narrow and technical meaning in logic, philosophy and mathematics. PLEASE do NOT use this word casually. (Note to the media - THIS MEANS YOU!!!) If you do not want to read the rest of this, fine, just promise to never use this word and we will all be better off.
Later we will look at a formal proof. There are LOTS of pages on the internet which describe this process, some better than others.
A proper proof is the conclusion of a sequence of irrefutable statements which follow from First Principles (axioms that are not subject to debate). The classic first-day-of-logic-class example is: True or false: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. Let’s update this to the present, True or false: All men are mortal. MSNBC tells us the coronavirus is spreading. Therefore, we are all going to die of the coronavirus. Tomorrow.
Media Math
On March 6, 2020 MSNBC anchor Brian Williams and New York Times writer Mara Gay spoke with outrage about this twitter post which they both emphatically represented as true.
The video is worth seeing if you like watching two of the World’s Dumbest People talk to each other. The conclusion that we are all going to die of coronavirus is not just a mistake brought to you by the same geniuses but is in fact the same mistake. When did you first hear the word “fraction”? For me it was the 2nd grade. At the same time, I heard the words “numerator” and “denominator” as elements of a fraction. On that day, a very determined Nun impressed upon me how important it was to get BOTH elements right in order to get the right answer. I never forgot that moment.
If Brian Williams had been in school that day his Bloomberg answer would have been closer to $1.50 than $1 million for every American. The scale of his mistake is epic. But so what? His reporting was about the mundane matters of politics and money. When he reports on a global health issue the stakes are higher. True or False: Should we believe him? Ever?
Hopefully we are not all going to die of the coronavirus. What we are all watching – and what we should be watching – is how many people are dying as a percentage of those infected and how that rate changes over time.
Brian, if you are listening, pay attention, this is one of those nasty 2nd grade division problems.
The numerator is not straightforward. Cause of death may be from interrelated issues, to which the coronavirus makes a contribution. But the actual body count is not much in doubt. Death is rarely under-reported (it’s hard to miss). So the numerator can be fairly accurate. The denominator is another story. Miss-reporting infection is common due to many reasons which vary across countries and cultures. Some have it and do not know it. Some have it and recover without reporting it. Some have it and die from another cause before it manifests itself. The denominator is very hard to nail down. Thus, the fraction is imprecise.
So, do we stop keeping records? Do we just run in all directions screaming? No, flawed and incomplete though they may be, numbers and statistics are useful in dealing with uncertainty. But even with them you still have uncertainty, just perhaps less. Numbers are evidence, not proof. Numbers are always questionable. Neither numerator nor denominator is an irreducible first principle. Thus, no fraction composed of numbers constitutes proof.
Logic demands that, for a proposition to be determined to be True or False, simple questions having only “Yes” or “No” answers be asked sequentially. Extending Aristotle a bit, True or False: Socrates is mortal. All mortals die. Therefore, Socrates will die. Between the time Socrates becomes mortal, presumably at or near birth, and the day he dies many things may happen to Socrates, one of which is fatal, all others not. Each of Socrates choices involve rational, logical yes/no decisions that influence how much time passes between the beginning and end of Socrates’ life.
The media has an agenda. It has no interest in whether what it broadcasts is true or false. Its only interest is that you see or hear whatever it broadcasts. It wants your attention and will do or say anything to get and keep it. The media has learned that human nature seeks out the disastrous, calamitous, bizarre, tragic, prurient and disgusting. The media wants to maximize the alarm; to hold as many as possible in its thrall. It has little interest in refinements such as proof, truth or accuracy. Therefore, as surely as Socrates is mortal, media does not deserve your trust.
The famous Pythagorean Theorem claims that for every right triangle the sum of the squares of each of the two shortest sides is equal to the square of the longest side (Brian Williams just fainted), or:
Proof: Because I said so.
[Next week: a Hillbilly Proof vs. an actual proof]