STATISTICS SHOW EATING ICE CREAM CAUSES MURDER
It's true! Multiple independent studies in cities across the United States have shown a significant correlation between the rates of ice cream consumption and violent crimes (both murder and rape). Detailed analyses confirm that the rate of ice cream consumption jumps several hours before that of violent crime. And finally, interviews with convicted felons revealed that a higher percentage of them admitted to eating ice cream shortly before committing their crimes during those peak periods!
Hundreds of statisticians have examined this evidence and not one has disputed the validity of these statistics!
Yet there are those who contend that the increase in crime is a consequence of "natural climatological fluctuations". They cite studies of heat wave / crime wave correlation in lactose-enlightened countries. They also point to heat wave / ice cream consumption correlation in non-violent populations. Most disturbingly, they offer evidence of lactose-intolerant violent criminals, which would seem to invalidate the entire ice cream -> crime cause-and-effect relationship.
I can't help thinking they have a point, but I could be wrong...
posted by Mike at 6:09 AM
5 Comments:
LoL Mike
Don't you just love statistics: my feet are in the ove, my head in the fridge: on average that is a nice temperature to be in.
But coming back to ice-cream and crime: long periods of very warm/hot weather 'gets' up your nerve, creating short tempers etc. Warm/hot weather also means lots of ice-creams. Now, if also the ice-creams are filled with E-colours etc (known to make every one jumpy, hyper-active) I don't think the end result : more crime is that surprising
Karin,
You're tempting me to go "full Onion" on the whole ice cream / global warming / chaos prevention issue! ;-)
Mike
P.S. Did my other comment make sense to you?
Hi Mike
Why not go 'full Onion' on the premisses of 'cold-spell' versus increased child-births 9 months later ;-)?
Human nature, who will ever figure it out exactly?
And yes, your other comment made more sense, thanks for that.
Hi Mike
I love statistics and read this this morning in The Saturday Times (UK) - article about seizing uninsured cars and their drivers by police (2 million uninsured driver in the UK):
"You get a feeling for a driver. I can't define it because it's an instinct you develop. But often the driver will avoid eye-contact and half the cars we stop we are right" (police officer on 'gut-feeling versus technology)
To me that sounds like 'flipping a coin: 50% chance it's heads. ;-)
Hi Karin,
It DOES sound like flipping a coin, but my guess is that 2 million is less than 50% of all drivers in the UK, in which case a random sampling would not yield a 50% arrest rate.
It's like a stat published several years ago in the New York Times. A report surveyed 100 subway riders about how often they rode, and reported that 50% rode daily and 40% rode less than once a week. But a random sample would be heavily weighted towards daily riders and the 50% overreported the percentage of daily riders.
It just goes to show that most people have less than a solid grasp of statistics!
Mike
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