Article November 27, 1989 Issue

Statistics and truth

with contributions from Nathan A. Talbot

"I was beginning to feel like a statistic," a writer related in a recent article in The Christian Science Journal (October 1989, p. 5). She had been praying for some time about a particular trouble, until one day "that very word statistic" struck her as the reason she "was still having to pray so hard." The condition troubling her—a disabling fear resulting from a violent physical attack—"was indeed statistically attached to millions of victims of violence." Her own healing came as her prayer reached out to include others—to recognize how falsely imposed that pattern of fear was, not only for herself but for everyone caught up in it.

Statistics often impose false patterns of fear and expectation on people, but the lesson in this woman's experience applies to any condition we may find "statistically attached" to us. This lesson came powerfully to mind when a study claiming to provide statistical evidence on Christian Scientists' longevity appeared in a medical publication.

The study compared the proportion of deaths among alumni from Principia College in Illinois, a college established for Christian Scientists, with deaths among alumni from the University of Kansas. The ostensible results showed a slightly shorter life expectancy for Principia alumni than for the Kansas alumni. We use the word "ostensible" because a careful and honest assessment of the study—not only by Christian Scientists but also by several in the medical community with whom the matter has been discussed—revealed serious problems with its methods and figures. These problems directly affected the study's results.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

Rising to the altitude of Spirit