The Dartmouth Observer |
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Commentary on politics, history, culture, and literature by two Dartmouth graduates and their buddies
WHO WE ARE Chien Wen Kung graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 and majored in History and English. He is currently a civil servant in Singapore. Someday, he hopes to pursue a PhD in History. John Stevenson graduated from Dartmouth College in 2005 with a BA in Government and War and Peace Studies. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He hopes to pursue a career in teaching and research. Kwame A. Holmes did not graduate from Dartmouth. However, after graduating from Florida A+M University in 2003, he began a doctorate in history at the University of Illinois--Urbana Champaign. Having moved to Chicago to write a dissertation on Black-Gay-Urban life in Washington D.C., he attached himself to the leg of John Stevenson and is thrilled to sporadically blog on the Dartmouth Observer. Feel free to email him comments, criticisms, spelling/grammar suggestions. BLOGS/WEBSITES WE READ The American Scene Arts & Letters Daily Agenda Gap Stephen Bainbridge Jack Balkin Becker and Posner Belgravia Dispatch Black Prof The Corner Demosthenes Daniel Drezner Five Rupees Free Dartmouth Galley Slaves Instapundit Mickey Kaus The Little Green Blog Left2Right Joe Malchow Josh Marshall OxBlog Bradford Plumer Political Theory Daily Info Andrew Samwick Right Reason Andrew Seal Andrew Sullivan Supreme Court Blog Tapped Tech Central Station UChicago Law Faculty Blog Volokh Conspiracy Washington Monthly Winds of Change Matthew Yglesias ARCHIVES BOOKS WE'RE READING CW's Books John's Books STUFF Site Feed    |
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
Spell Check Brent Kesler wrote in his post on the statistics on female genital mutilation: The statistic comes from the Sisterhood is Global Isntitute. If 6000 girls are genitally mutilated everyday, then in a 365-day year, that comes out to 2,190,000 per year, a lot more than 200,000. This has an error of nearly 1,000%. I must ask: 1) Is the Sisterhood is Global Institute in the habit of producing bad statistics? or 2) Do they merely pass on bad statistics without bothering to check facts? or 3) Is this a simple typo? Was it really necessary to list options one and two when the "error of nearly 1000%" almost certainly resulted from a typo? If you look to the bottom of the page, the source for the statistics is the United Nations Human Development Report. One has to doubt that the U.N. would provide statistics with such basic mathematical errors. And after all, typos do happen to the best of us: take Brent's misspelling of the Sister is Global Isntitute [sic]. Let's try to not let typos in web content sidetrack a serious debate. |