Does Legalizing Sex Work Increase Human Trafficking?
A go-to study for advocates of restricting sex work used a flawed economic model and abysmal data.
Statistics
How Many Americans Have Died of COVID-19?
Adding up COVID-19's toll since Donald Trump declared a national emergency five years ago.
Is Science Rigged for the Rich?
A recent study claiming inequality of opportunity in the sciences commits statistical and conceptual errors that make its findings meaningless.
Does Weed Cause Strokes and Heart Attacks?
A widely cited study commits so many egregious statistical errors that it's a poster child for junk science.
Preliminary FBI Data: Crime Steeply Declined in Early 2024
While the data is far from perfect, if the overall trend holds, violent crime could be back to pre-COVID levels by the end of the year.
Academics Use Imaginary Data in Their Research
Academia values the appearance of truth over actual truth.
CDC Vastly Overestimated U.S. Maternal Death Rates, Says New Study
Maternal health care has actually improved substantially in many areas.
The New York Times Misrepresented a Shoddy Study Claiming Private Equity Worsened Hospital Care
Researchers trumpeted a statistically insignificant finding and attempted to explain away contrary data. The Gray Lady further garbled the evidence.
The Wildly Misleading Statistic at the Center of the FTC's Antitrust Case Against Amazon
Lina Khan says this number is crucial to understanding Amazon's monopoly power, but she's either confused or lying about what it means.
The Shady Statistics Behind the War on Painkillers
The government has doubled down on failed policies, citing deeply flawed studies and misrepresenting data.
Will the Government Shutdown Result in 'Hunger for Millions' as Reuters Claims?
When you use incorrect stats to bolster your claims, as Reuters did, all kinds of foolish conclusions follow.
CDC Inflated Data About Teen Girls and Sexual Assault
Plus: Lack of independence could cause childhood mental health issues, Biden follows Trump playbook on TikTok, and more...
FBI Reports Dubious 'Trend' of Rideshare Driver Kidnappings
Plus: Pandemic learning loss, German weed legalization, and more...
Is Crime Getting Better or Worse? We Don't Really Know.
The FBI changed the way it compiles data, and reporting law-enforcement agencies have yet to catch up.
Did Murders Rise in 2021? No One Knows.
Plus: Court says DACA is illegal, Colorado baker appeals gender transition cake ruling, and more...
Guns Aren't a Public Health Issue
A deeply flawed documentary by the gray lady unwittingly makes the case for why the CDC shouldn't be studying gun violence.
Number of American Mass Murders Relatively Steady Since 2006
Plus: A surge in female voter registrations, eminent domain in North Carolina, and more...
Lies, Damned Lies, and …
How a truly ridiculous statistical notion played its part in the January 6 uprising
Do Studies Show Gun Control Works? No.
Out of 27,900 research publications on gun laws, only 123 tested their effects rigorously.
Survey Finds No Rise in Anti-Asian Violence, Assaults Declined in 2020
Some encouraging results from the 2020 National Crime Victimization Survey
Do We Really Need New Anti-Asian Hate Crime Laws?
A holistic look at the data shatters the narrative about bias-based violence.
Statistics, and How the World Works
A surprising number of people seem to believe that the "improbability" that Biden could have won (in a fair election) is evidence that he didn't win (in a fair election). It isn't.
Prominent Researchers Say a Widely Cited Study on Wearing Masks Is Badly Flawed
"Masks matter. So does good science. Let's do both."
Critics Say a Pair of California Antibody Studies Contain Critical Statistical Errors That Produced Implausible Results
Too many false positives, nonrandom study population, and infection fatality rates out of whack with other data, critics claim.
No, Russian Bots Didn't Cause Trump's Poll Numbers To Increase 1 Percent Per 25K Retweets
Blaming Trump's election on the magical power of Russian Twitter bots is seductive because it excuses Americans for electing an obviously unqualified candidate.
How To Crush 'the Tyranny of Metrics'
Historian Jerry Z. Muller says we waste too much time fixating on measurements that lead us astray.
Foggy Sex Trafficking Stats Pop Up in the Bay Area
Did San Francisco really see a 170 percent "spike in human trafficking" last year?
Stop Letting People Lie to You About Hate Crime and Human Trafficking Spikes
Government statistics often show more reports of both. That doesn't mean either is on the rise.
Are American Workers Getting Shafted?
Think labor's share of America's economic output has been plunging? Think again.
No, There Haven't Been 18 School Shootings This Year
It trivializes a brutal crime to inflate the count this way. Cut it out.
15 Times Major Media Outlets Used a Statistic about Plastic Straws Based on Research by a 9-Year-Old
A number's popularity does not prove its accuracy.
Is That Poll That Found College Students Don't Value Free Speech Really 'Junk Science'? Not So Fast
Or how writing about survey methodology can go wrong fast
Human-Trafficking Arrests Are Very Rare in Most States
The exceptions in 2016 were Minnesota and Texas, according to newly released FBI data.
No Rise in Hate-Crime Rate Since 2004
"Hate crimes" suspected to be motivated by racial bias have dropped, but those perceived to be motivated by gender bias nearly doubled.
Do Libertarian Voters Actually Exist? Yes, and in Droves [Reason Podcast]
Cato's polling director Emily Ekins says as many as one in five voters can be identified as libertarian.
Politicians Choosing Their Voters vs. Voters Choosing Their Politicians
The Supreme Court to decide if gerrymandering is unconstitutional
Suspect Statistics From Plastic Surgeon Society Say 'Gender Confirmation Surgeries' Up 19 Percent Last Year
There were 3,256 such surgeries in 2016, says the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. But how it got this number is anyone's guess.
Enough Stranger Danger! Children Rarely Abducted by Those They Don't Know
U.S. kids are no more likely to be abducted today than they were decades ago, and much more likely to be returned safely when they are.
Eat More Peppers, Live Longer; Eat More Grilled Meat, Die Sooner
Exploring the absurdities of modern nutritional epidemiology.
Sex-Trafficking Stat Check: How 45 Toledo Teens Become '1,000 Child Sex-Trafficking Victims'
Officials claim that more than 1,000 Ohio children are "trafficked into the sex trade each year." Here's why they're wrong.
Their Science Is Not Broken, Assert Psychologists
Contradicts claims that only 40 percent of studies could be replicated.
Good News, Americans! Cars Are Now Killing as Few People as Guns!
The numbers don't justify the outrage and fear.
The New York Times Says Working in Nail Salons Causes Cancer and Miscarriages. The Evidence Says Otherwise. (Part 3)
The final in a three-part series on how Sarah Maslin Nir's investigative series violated the standards of responsible journalism.
Epidemiology Makes Astrology Look Respectable
Sitting all day will kill you. Well, maybe not.
Why Can't Anyone Agree How Many Mass Shootings There Have Been In 2013?
Making sense of the competing statistics
