--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > <snip to> > > This makes sense to me as a criticism of the > > study design. Why they chose to lump all violent > > crime together isn't entirely clear, but I can't > > imagine they did this because they *expected* the > > murder rate to spike and *wanted* to submerge it. > > > > I suspect they did it because it wouldn't sound as > > impressive, PR-wise, to claim a decline merely in > > assaults, as opposed to a decline in all violent > > crime; and to do studies on all three types of > > violent crime separately would just have been too > > complicated. > > You're not suggesting that the *purpose* of > the study was PR, are you?
Partly, of course. As you know, MMY at that that point was still hoping to convince governmental and other institutional funding for large groups. > Just joking. *Of course* the purpose of the > study was PR. That's why a lot of people don't > take these studies seriously, and lump them in > with the types of studies paid for by tobacco > money. Guilt by association. Perfectly respectable pharmaceutical companies pay for studies of their new drugs as well, and they're taken quite seriously by the FDA. > Not to be argumentative but to explain, I'd > love to see serious studies about the value > of meditation. They could help to convince > more people to try it. But when the study is > done by Brand X, *promoting* Brand X, I don't > think I'm wrong to be a little skeptical. Of course independent studies would be more impressive. But studies by the promoters are almost always the first step. If they're good enough, then independent researchers may want to try to replicate them. > I was serious about the Disraeli line. IMO > *most* statistics can be twisted to say what- > ever you want them to say. So it was a serious non sequitur. I see. The point, of course, is that you got most of your facts wrong about the murder spike, so your exceedingly unpleasant comments about it to new morning were way, way off target, as was your subsequent attempt at an analogy. It isn't exactly breaking news that statistics can be twisted. You found something you thought indicated twisting, but since you were all mixed up about the circumstances, citing the old Disraeli quote, which we've all heard many times, was entirely irrelevant as a response to my post.
