The NYT evidence is actually in a grey area between anecdotal and valid systematically collected data set. They did use a repeated and systematic approach. It had flaws, but it was systematic and repeatable.
They’re essentially comparing anecdotal data with other anecdotal data. It is “systematic and repeatable” from the standpoint that they had a describable method for finding their numbers, and presumably someone else could use the same method (though apparently the Pentagon said it “could not duplicate the newspaper’s research.”) That doesn’t mean their method is any good, because their source, media reports, have too many built-in variables. Nor can they say with anything like authority that these killings were necessarily tied to vets’ service. In some cases they no doubt were, but in others they were not – a fact ignored by the Times on the way to their “89% increase”. I can’t really improve on the Wall Street Journal’s critique:
“The Times is purporting to test a media stereotype by measuring its prevalence in the media. As a Pentagon spokesman put it, that 89% spike could have resulted from “an increase in awareness of military service by reporters since 9/11.” Or, to put it more bluntly, the Times hasn’t necessarily proved that the stereotype is true — only that it is a stereotype.”
You can call us all hypocrites and assert that we’d all change sides if the results were different if you like, but crap data is crap data. You’ve said that the research has “flaws”. My point is merely that it is SO flawed, and so extrapolated from a small data set, that it’s too thin a shingle on which to hang a multi-part investigative report in the “newspaper of record,” especially when it tends to impugn returning service men and women.
I’m glad that your Left-leaning friends didn’t get that impression. But I don’t see how anyone can argue that the central thrust of this article is not, “vets are coming home damaged/crazy and killing people 89% more often”. If they’re going to make a charge like that they had better have some convincing evidence to show us. This Lexis/Nexis nonsense they’ve come up with wouldn’t pass muster in a high school term paper.
And yes, frankly, it is true that this whole thing wouldn’t grate so much if it didn’t feed into a popular and unfair stereotype that has done real damage to real people over the years.
