Sometime in the late 1960s or early ’70s, I was jolted by a headline in the sports section of our local newspaper. Decades after his death, Babe Ruth had apparently added another home run to his legend. After a generation of fans grew up knowing that Ruth had hit an all-time record of 714 home runs, we were told the actual number was 715.
How did that happen? Major League Baseball had hired a company to review all the old records of every game ever played. Along the way, they discovered that Ruth had come to bat with a man on first and hit what we would now call a walk-off home run. But in the scoring rules of his era, that only counted as a triple. Why? Because when the man on first scored, they considered the game officially over and Ruth would have only gotten to third base.
So, the review team applied the modern rules and gave the Sultan of Swat another home run. They were eventually overruled by the commissioner who said they had no authority to change the rules that were in effect when Ruth played.
I bring this up to highlight the importance of understanding how the data we rely upon is calculated. As a data geek, I know the value of good numbers and accurate measurement of the data. But I know it’s often even more important to focus on what’s being counted.
Another great example of this popped up in the late 1980s or early ’90s. Some company decided to rate the best jobs in the world and concluded that being an actuary was the ideal job. What made it funny is that being a Major League Baseball player didn’t even make the top 200. Obviously, that was a silly conclusion. Millions of young boys dream of growing up to play professional sports but I don’t remember any of my friends dreaming of a career as an actuary.
So, how did the absurd result come about? It wasn’t a mistake in the calculations. Instead, it was all about the definitions. Jobs where people worked outdoors were defined as less desirable. So were jobs in a competitive environment. And, all salary levels above $50,000 or $75,000 were deemed to have the same value.
So, Gerrit Cole’s $36 million a year job is defined as less desirable because he works outdoors in a competitive environment. Oh, and did I mention that he sometimes has to work at night and put up with the adulation of countless fans and ballplayers across the nation. Uh huh, right! Being an actuary may be an ideal job for some, but the results had no value because the standards didn’t reflect reality.
This is a huge issue as our nation wrestles with an unprecedented pandemic. It turns out that many of the COVID-19 stats that have driven pandemic lockdowns may be equally flawed.
From the beginning, there has been a perception that anybody who tests positive should socially isolate. But a new analysis from The New York Times suggests that up to 90% of those who tested positive may not have been contagious at all. Again, this is from The New York Times, a major cheerleader for stringent lockdowns.
It turns out that the technical thresholds used by experts to measure for the coronavirus were probably way too stringent. What does that mean in real terms? According to the Times, “the United States recorded 45,604 new coronavirus cases” last Thursday. While all were expected to socially isolate, more than 40,000 of those individuals probably weren’t contagious. According to the paper, only about 4,500 of them “may actually need to isolate and submit to contact tracing.”
Think about that. In a single day we required more than 40,000 noncontagious people to socially isolate. When informed of these results, Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said it changes “the way we need to be thinking about testing.”
This is not to dismiss concern about COVID-19. It is a deadly disease that has spread rapidly and caused great suffering. And it does not mean we should stop testing. But we shouldn’t rely on tests that are as useful as a study showing being an actuary is better than being a major league baseball player.
Scott Rasmussen is an American political analyst and digital media entrepreneur. He is the author of “The Sun is Still Rising: Politics Has Failed But America Will Not.”