Live by the Stats, Die by the Stats

To the Editor:

Regarding Mark Skousen’s column, “Chicago Gun Show,” in the October 1999 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty the statistical arguments advanced by the Chicago school allegedly demonstrating gun ownership reduces violent crime are methodologically flawed. Though I am a proud gun owner and lifetime NRA member, I believe citing these specious arguments is decidedly un- Austrian.

There are several reasons statistics are invalid proofs for explaining human action. First, they are descriptions of the past. Past behavior does not determine future behavior. Second, because the competing potential causal factors cannot be held constant, it is impossible to assign cause to effect. Mr. Lott’s graph could also be used to show the drop in violent crime after the Brady Bill, which occurred at approximately the same time, by simply changing the caption at the bottom. Third, statistical samples are always incomplete, as was stated in the article. Even the U.S. census fails to account for 100 percent of the population. It is pure speculation as to how the missing part of the population would have affected the statistics gathered and the conclusions drawn. Last, statistics are always summaries of sample data, which is another way of saying they are incomplete explanations. For instance, an average only accurately explains a very small part of a sample.

The article ends with a specious conclusion: “All this confirms a long-standing constitutional principle: People have the right to own a gun for self-protection.”

But statistical arguments cannot confirm the existence of a right! I have the right appropriately to use lethal force in self-defense regardless of its effect at deterring crime, for that matter regardless of the Constitution. The Second Amendment does not grant me the right to keep and bear arms; it recognizes that right and protects it. In this case, the statistical arguments offered can only impotently attempt to prove the effectiveness of gun ownership in deterring violent crime. And they can’t even accomplish that for the reasons cited above. While I agree with the argument that criminal behavior must logically be deterred by the potential for self-defense, the means by which I arrive at that conclusion matter. The Austrian methodology verbal logic is the appropriate one. I’m surprised and slightly disappointed to see a specious Chicago school statistical argument finding its way into this esteemed Austrian school publication.

—Todd Shoenfelt

San Francisco

Mark Skousen replies:

True, you can’t prove anything with statistics, but quantitative studies do provide evidence in support of basic economic principle. In the case of crime, John Lott provided strong evidence that when you raise the cost of committing a crime, fewer crimes are committed essentially confirming the law of demand. Now you can use “verbal logic” till you’re blue in the face in defense of the downward-sloping demand curve, but statistical evidence from the past can do wonders to liberate the mind from false notions (many of which exist in the controversial issue of gun control).

I grant you that sometimes data contradict a theory, but that does not mean that statistical work is never valuable. It simply means further analysis is necessary. But in no case should economists ignore statistical studies that contradict a hypothesis.

I should point out that many “Austrian” economists have used statistical evidence in support of their position, including Murray Rothbard in America’s Great Depression and Walter Block in his work Economic Freedom of the World (co-authored with James Gwartney and Robert Lawson). The latter work included a graph demonstrating that the higher a nation’s level of economic freedom, the higher the per capita income. Such graphs have a far greater influence for good than mere “verbal logic.”

Mental Illness a Myth?

To the Editor:

According to Thomas Szasz, the scientific criterion for disease is a “derangement in the structure or function of cells, tissues and organs” (The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, November 1999). Based on this definition, he states that mental illnesses or brain disorders are not physical diseases because they can be neither detected nor diagnosed by examining cells, tissues, or organs.

But research over the past several decades shows that mental illnesses or brain disorders are in fact physical diseases. The brain is of course an organ. Brain disorders are caused by biochemical imbalances, i.e., derangements, in the brain’s neurotransmitting systems.

However, mental illnesses or brain disorders are unique among physical diseases in that symptoms of this disease are primarily mental or behavioral rather than physical. Ideally, in the future, medicine will be able to look into the brain, analyze the malfunctioning of neurotransmitters such as serotonin or dopamine, diagnose the biochemical imbalance, and prescribe an appropriate medication. But the inability to do this at this time should not detract from the current scientific insight that mental illnesses or brain disorders are physical diseases that can be treated with medications the same as other physical diseases.

—James A. Weber

Chicago

Thomas Szasz replies:

It is disheartening to read Mr. Weber’s statement that I say “that mental illnesses or [sic] brain disorders are not physical diseases.” I clearly stated that I do not consider “mental illnesses” to be synonymous with brain disorders, and that “[if] ‘mental illness’ means brain disease, then it is not a disease of the mind and psychiatry would be absorbed into neurology and disappear.” The brain is an organ of the body; any process found to be a disease of the brain therefore lies within the province of neurology. The mind is not an organ of the body.

Mr. Weber also states: “However, mental illnesses or brain disorders are unique among physical diseases in that symptoms of this disease are primarily mental or behavioral rather than physical.” This is erroneous. The initial symptoms of many bodily diseases may be primarily “mental” (fatigue, insomnia). The presence of bodily disease cannot be reliably inferred from symptoms or from response to “treatment,” as Mr. Weber suggests. It is inferred from finding lesions. In “mental disease” there is no lesion; that is why, in psychiatry, diagnosis is mistaken for and is accepted as a disease.

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