Here are two quotes for your consideration:
1. Statistics can be quoted to prove any point.
2. You can make statistics look like whatever you want.
Where do you think these two statements come from?
#1 is from an article in the 01/06/2006 Chronicle of Higher Education, "All Eyes On Tenure". The statment is attributed to Colorado state Representative David Schultheis (Republican). Context: the University of Colorado is undertaking a comprehensive review of its tenure and post-tenure review procedures, in reponse to calls from the conservative state legislature that tenure should be abolished or brought under central (state) control. Michel Dahlin, acting vice-president for academic affairs at U. Colorado said that university statistics show the system is working, prompting Rep. Schultheis to offer his no doubt learned opinion that statistics are, in effect, meaningless.
#2 is from the home page of the Ohio State University Department of Women's Studies. It is the title of a piece of fiber art by Carol Phillips Whitt used as a backdrop on the home page. The context appears to offer this as the "motto" of the Women's Studies department. The home page also states "Our interdisciplinary program is organized around feminist lines of inquiry that cut across disciplines and traditional categories of knowledge." Apparently, statistics is not one of the categories of knowledge considered useful for feminist lines of inquiry.
I'm disturbed, and you ought to be, too, by finding the same dismissal of statistics coming from conservative Republicans and from women's studies. In women's studies, this reflects a prevailing paradigm that says knowledge is relative, objectivity is a fantasy, science is an oppressive tool of the patriarchy. In the conservative right, it reflects a prevailing attitude that the academy is biased to the left, professors are idealogues in the classroom, universities are not to be trusted as sources of information.
It's the same message from both sources, just used for different purposes. The critique from women's studies is intended to oppose scientific practices that are seen as harmful to women. The critique from the conservative right is intended to oppose liberal practices that are seen as harmful to a moral society.
In both cases, science gets the shaft. It's no secret that Republicans have disdain for science, except when they can turn it to their purposes (global warming is a myth! drilling for oil in ANWR won't hurt the environment!). Women's studies at least engages with science, but mainly through the avenue of critique. The obsession with fashionable literary theory convinces non-scientists that science is only another text to be deconstructed. For both the conservative right and the feminist projects, it is useful to deny the utility and meaning of statistical analyses.
I don't think the conservative right can continue its anti-science agenda without denigrating and perverting science. But I do think it ought to be possible to construct a valid and useful feminist analysis of science that acknowledges that we can, in fact, know some things. Such an analysis would actually be useful for women scientists and the issues they care about.
After all, if there are no objective criteria for evaluating competing claims, why should anyone listen to feminist critiques of science? Why should anyone not listen to proponents of intelligent design who say it is science?
You can, indeed, use statistics to lie. But it's a lie to say that statistics are meaningless.
2:51:57 PM 
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