How Lawyers Lie With Statistics

Vision Forum willfully distorted statistics related to the true morbidity and mortality associated with ectopic pregnancy.  Ectopic pregnancy still remains the leading cause of death of all pregnant women in the first trimester of pregnancy.  It accounts for 9% of all maternal deaths in all pregnancy-related deaths.  In the case of death of pregnant women which includes non-pregnancy related death (unrelated heart disease or car accidents, for example), ectopic pregnancy still accounts for 6% of deaths of pregnant women.  

Despite these statistics, Vision Forum and Samaritan Ministries insist that ectopic pregnancy does not pose a significant health risk to women.  They have offered that 60-100 cases of live births resulting from ectopic pregnancies have been documented, but I can find no such reference to this rate of frequency.  One rate of frequency of "one in 60 million" has been offered to describe the rate of such births, and many falsely understand this as a probability statement when the probability for such births is actually ZERO.  I believe that the publications produced on this topic also capitalize on frequencies, using them as probability statements.  In the absence of well-rounded data presenting all the statistics, both Vision Forum and Samaritan Ministries manipulate trusting readers to accept a dangerous view of a very serious medical problem experienced by women of childbearing age.  Ectopic pregnancy, a deadly threat to women, should not be viewed as a game of chance.

Note how attorneys alter the way they present information to juries in order to make statistics seem either more or less impressive.  It is my hope that the reader will come away with a greater appreciation for the language of medical statistics and how numbers can be used to deceive the unsuspecting.

Excerpts from

The Psychology of Numbers in the Courtroom: 

How to make DNA-Match Statistics Seem Impressive or Insufficient

South California Law Review, Vol. 74, p. 1275, 2001

(emphasis mine!)

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Why an Average Can Be Misleading and How To Get Number Savvy: Vision Forum Myths About Ectopic Pregnancy as a Prototype

 
 

... Why I take issue with the misleading nature of the “1 in 60 million” rate of ectopic pregnancies that result in live births as quoted by Vision Forum and Samaritan Ministries.  

 Start HERE for some prerequisite ideas about how we can easily fall into "lying with statistics."


Start HERE for an overview of Vision Forum's aberrant stance on Ectopic Pregnancy

Briefly backing up…

Vision Forum and Samaritan Ministries cited a physician who stated that the chance of a live birth from an ectopic pregnancy was “60 million to one.”  I suppose that’s not Vision Forum’s fault for republishing this information, but I do fault Samaritan Ministries for disseminating the related information regarding healthcare statistics.  As an entity involved in the procuring and payment of healthcare, they have a higher burden of responsibility to communicate accurate information to their membership.

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Means, Medians, and Modes: Vision Forum Definitely Works the Psychology of Numbers to their Advantage at the Expense of their Followers

... Why I take issue with the misleading nature of the “1 in 60 million” rate of ectopic pregnancies that result in live births as quoted by Vision Forum and Samaritan Ministries. 

Link HERE if you haven't read the previous posts pertaining to Vision Forum, Samaritan Ministries, and their dangerous views on ectopic pregnancy.

I suspect that until I get caught up and do at least a rough chi-square analysis to demonstrate how these calculations work, the probability is actually zero and the actual cases of live births may be more one in some obscene number that’s so big, it has no meaning.  That’s why the probability when calculating these odds is equal to ZERO.

Let’s start with Don Veinot’s blog article which also takes issue with Vision Forum’s position on ectopic pregnancy to demonstrate how such large numbers can become meaningless quickly.

From "The Crux," 17Jun10:

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Hey, Even I Lied With Statistics (By Accident!)

Ignorance, Stupid Error, and Willful Intent:  Vision Forum is still guilty of objectifying women and children

Christians often quote the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the Church at Rome that "God works all things together for good."  Today, I hope that my own error can be used for good, illustrating that statistics can be tough.  Though I am mortified and have sweat through two changes of clothing since I figured out what I did, I think that it illustrates a fine point in the discussion of how we can easily get turned around with statistics.  I hope that it demonstrates that we always have the option to "eat crow," and Winston Churchill once said that it makes for a more than adequate diet.  Where sin (missing the mark) abounds, grace does much more abound.  I hope that this is one instance where God can show His strength through my weakness and show glory through my shame (Ps 4:2).  This verse was of great comfort to me today:

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

1 Corinthians 11:30-31

I expect that something similar to a portion of this post that now follows will appear on No Longer Quivering sometime in the near future, though I expand a bit more upon the subject here in my own corner of the internet.  If I had intended to be misleading from the start, I would have not included all of the numbers in the post where I first made the error!

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Why We Get Tricked Into Lying With Statistics: Conditional Probability, Ecotpic Pregnancy, and Confirmation Bias

Calling All Statisticians!

Please, somebody, HELP me figure out the probability of a live birth from a non-tubal ectopic pregnancy.

In the next couple of posts, I hope to explain briefly just why people fall into the trap of “lying with statistics” as one of the trappings of our humanity as we try to understand truth and the nature of things. I think the matter of figuring out the true probability of delivering a live birth from a non-tubal ectopic pregnancy can not only give the reader a glimpse into the science of understanding behavior (some areas of psychology and health depend and revolve around science and factual truth), but it can teach us something about “confirmation bias” or seeing only what we want to see in the world or a situation.

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Surgery for Tubal Pregnancy Deemed an Elective Abortion??? The Discussion of Vision Forum’s Fiat Raises More Questions

A Response to No Longer Quivering's
Vision Forum, Samaritan Ministries Take Extreme “Pro-Life” Position on Ectopic Pregnancies

In the name of “Right to Life” Quiverfull moms could lose their lives

Following the previous post about Vision Forum’s plans to advance their thesis regarding surgical treatment for tubal pregnancy before confirmed death of an unborn baby as the ethical equivalent of elective abortion, several insightful questions have been presented in different areas around the blogosphere including the NLQ Forum.  They are worth noting.

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How Vision Forum "Lies with Statistics" to Prove that They are Special to God: Women with Ectopic Pregnancy Consigned to Die

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Please see my post on the No Longer Quivering Blog concerning Samaritan Ministry’s support of the Vision Forum position on ectopic pregnancy, something Vyckie entitled, “Vision Forum, Samaritan Ministries Take Extreme “Pro-Life” Position on Ectopic Pregnancies.”

LATE NOTE:  For math geeks, please see my disclaimer at the bottom of the page.

On the first day of my statistics class in college, the instructor held up a book that was not our assigned text, an old classic from the 1950s entitled “How to Lie with Statistics.”  Whenever he introduced a new topic, the instructor also presented an example of common mistakes made by many people, failing to appreciate the traps one can fall into when trying to prognosticate.  And my own research was good enough to have been the only undergraduate invited to present their research project at the Nursing Honor Society’s regional meeting in 1987.  And I continue to review data and participate in peer review within toxicology, having co-authored published research in this related field.  I’ve won two "Young Scientist" research awards as coauthor from TIAFT.  All that to say that I know a little bit about statistics -- particularly health care statistics after more than 25 years in the field.   I don't know that Vision Forum intends to lie with statistics, but they end up making classic and ignorant errors which results in the manipulation of their followers. (It might be an innocent result of confirmation bias.)   I think that their followers deserve informed consent.

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