Speaking of an innumeracy that plagues ppl's assessment of problems...Jill Lepore makes an astounding claim that 2/3 of Americans treated in emergency rooms had been injured by police or security guards.
h/t @PsychRabble
1/n
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-of-the-police

The correct number is .1%.
Tip of her error-ridden iceberg

Meanwhile, I am STILL trying to wrap my brain around how 2/3 of Americans can have been treated for one thing & 2/3 treated for another.

@PeterMoskos dissects the #s w/a rare panache
2/n

https://copinthehood.com/2020/07/26/history-isnt-bunk-part-1/

. @Louise_m_perry observes, "We know that political bias warps cognition, sometimes catastrophically, and this is, I think, an example of that in action. "

Lepore's error speaks volumes, indeed!
3/n https://unherd.com/thepost/an-untrue-claim-in-the-new-yorker-speaks-volumes/?=frpo

Tip, meet Iceberg!Back to @PeterMoskos as he dives into the REST of Lepore's claims.

"Her article has so many errors. But rather than refute her point by point [...], I’m just going to present my own history of the invention of police."
4/n
https://copinthehood.com/2020/07/26/history-isnt-bunk-part-2-new-york-city-police/

Oh furious Fact Checkers, where art thou when it comes to errors in the New Yorker & other ideologically aligned brethren?

Where r all those technically-correct-but-substantively-WRONG fact checks on the kinds of pieces that LED to this Big Silly of Lepore's claim?
5/n

Yet another time when I silently salute the Big Wonder of a democratizing internet that allows the untitled fact-checkers among us like @PeterMoskos to correct the record.
6/end