I think you and I both at least agree that there is discrepancy. Sure, it’s impossible to really know what information she had access to, but nevertheless the statistic that she produced is questionable for this discrepancy, and for the fact that she did not care to qualify it as such.

As i pointed out before, her article was posted four months before the FBI statistics were posted, therefore there was no discprepency, and no need to qualify it, at the time of publishing.

The fact is, it’s hard to independently verify the veracity of the statistic from the information available.

It doesn’t really matter much anyways, as even with the FBI’s lower number of 41 deaths, that still puts cops killed at 36 times the rate of unarmed black males killed by cops, instead of 45 times. So even if we accept the accusation that her data and/or methodology were corrupt, it doesn’t change the outcome.

To your point about the average, I think there are a whole lot more confounding variables in a 10 year average than a one year count when one is trying to compare two variables

We can agree to disagree, i’ve addressed this well enough i think.

But that’s not even the worst thing about the statistic. The worst thing is, again, the fact that in creating this statistic, she essentially pits black males against police, like they are rival gangs

Possibly, and that may be a fair criticism, but she is doing so in response to the current narrative that cops are preying on black people. Given that narrative, it’s not at all out of line to suggest the counter narrative that black men are the ones preying on the police. On its own, in a vacuum, it may be odd and/or inappropriate to draw such a comparison, but it has its place as a counter.

The second worst thing though is that- if there are all these discrepancies- there were no efforts to update or correct them, by her or anyone else.

What do you mean by “all these discrepancies”? You’ve identified one discrepancy. I’ll give you that if she had been made aware of the discrepancy later on, then some sort of correction would be warranted. However, as i stated previously, it doesn’t really change the narrative at all even if we use the new FBI numbers.

…in upholding and not questioning this statistic, they are doing the very same thing.

To the extent that they are not updating 45 to 36, sure. We’re entering distinction without a difference land.

I have dealt with some of the other sources Mac Donald used in another post. The Fryer paper, which so many go gaga for, is a working paper that has not yet been peer reviewed to my knowledge. And yes, I do care where things are published and by whom, because smart people dissecting things is how science and academic thought works, and in the age of fake news, this process is all the more important.

I agree that peer review is important, of course this is how science works. But, it’s intellectually lazy, and logically fallacious, to decry a study because someone else who’s smart hasn’t gone over it yet, rather than going over it oneself. A criticism of the methodology of a study, as you attempted with Mac Donald, and as you do in your last response to the Fryer paper, is entirely valid. However, criticizing it because it hasn’t been peer reviewed yet is, well that’s nothing really.

With regard to the Fryer paper, i don’t know it well enough to comment on it as of yet, perhaps after finals i’ll dig into it. For now Traditional Tradesman and Mr. Shuey seem to have a much better grasp on the specifics of that material.

As to the Washington Post article, it is basically a summation of findings from a database operated by WaPo. Similar biases have been reported by both the Guardian and Mapping Police Violence (there’s some of that verification). FBI data generally lags in releasing detailed data, so I think that’s the problem there

I don’t think that’s the problem there, since the WaPo points out that FBI data has never shown more than 460 police shootings, and the WaPo database shows 990 in 2015. Unless police shootings have literally more than doubled in the last six years, that’s far more of a discrepancy than merely lagging behind, and the article makes no effort to explain this.

Even so, they have not released their own database on this issue. And just as you trust the NLEOMF’s numbers more than the FBI’s so too do I think these are more independent until, again, there is a more robust transparent investigation into this issue.

I don’t necessarily trust the NLEOMF’s numbers more than the FBI, i just think an argument can be made there. However i would point out that if you trust the WaPo numbers more than the FBI, why would you not accept NLEOMF’s numbers? Why instead focus so much on a single discrepancy in Mac Donalds numbers to the FBI’s, while being non-chalant about the WaPo discrepancy?

However, when someone rests their argument on sweeping generalizations, I don’t think there will be much to agree on, so don’t think it is a useful discussion. We progress in a society when we get rid of unfounded stereotypes, not when we bend over backgrounds to prove their worth.

You have to understand that generalizations are an absolute necessity to communication. If we’re ever talking about more than one specific instance at a time where we can lay out all the individual details of each case, then we have to be using generalizations. Democrats favor bigger government, Republicans favor lower taxes. Those are accurate generalizations, but completely false if interpreted as absolutes, as all generalizations would be.

Don’t get hung up on whether it’s a sweeping generalization (for the record, i don’t think his were, and you have wrongly interpreted them as absolutes). The reason arguments often get made at the extreme ends of the spectrum is because there are fewer compounding factors there. It’s easier to demonstrate an idea in its purity as an extreme without all the muck of the middle ground. Once it’s been properly conceptualized, then it can be applied to the middle.

I dunno how clear that last paragraph was, but there’s some gold in there somewhere.

I do thank you for choosing to focus your argument on the data. This made it all the stronger and more interesting. We not may agree on this issue, but it has been truly insightful to read your point of view, and I have learned something from your responses.

Thanks for your responses as well. This is the first time in a couple months I’ve had an opportunity to have some semblance of an intellectual discussion. I’m on this site to engage with smart people who disagree with me, but it definitely seems like most people are here for the echo chamber.