...and statistics
'ROBIN Pike, from Aylesbury Gram- mar School, told delegates to the annual assembly of the assistant Masters and Mistresses Association that. . . in the last two years, four or five Buckingham- shire teachers had died in `stress-related circumstances'. There are 4,500 teachers in Buckinghamshire, Mr Pike said. One in every 1,000 had died of stress-related causes in the past two
(Independent, 9 April)
"`It is a major problem which is reaching crisis proportions", Mr Pike
added.' (Times, 9 April)
It is not shown by Mr Pike that whatever stress suffered stemmed whol- ly from their occupation. Nor has he shown that the four or five individuals who died out of a total 4,500 had the sort of personalities what would not have been subject to stress in any other job under modern conditions. Stress is not clinically recognised as a direct cause of death. It would never be entered as one on a death certificate, for instance. Finally, the sample figure of four or five is an extremely small one on which to erect such generalisations. Dr John Bonn, of the Stress Research Unit at Bart's Hospital, said, `It is very difficult, if not impossible, to make any statistical comment on the figures as they stand.'
This is the first week of our new feature. Readers are invited to send in current examples of statistical nonsense or distortion, quoting from published sources to: . . and statistics', The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 211.
The first prize will be £20. Other published entries will win f10.
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