Lies, damned lies and statistics

Mark Twain

The quotation "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is attributed to Mark Twain.

Doing dishes I overhead A explaining that the chance of my daughter-in-law having had three girls in a row was 1 in 8 and yet, should she be pregnant again, the chance of the next child being a girl was only 50%. Mathematics which I cannot eschew. But J could not believe this logic. The flaws, of course, are that the statements give no credence to providence and that laws of chance are hardly application to isolated events. And thus many folk use statistics to lie.

Even though I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.

How easy it is for me to live a lie. Onlookers call this hypocrisy but I know it is my comfort zone. The story is told, long ago, of a man who chopped down a choice tree: half he used to build a fire to warm himself and cook a meal; the rest he fashioned an idol from to which he prayed saying "Deliver me, for you are my God". The teller observes that the man seems unaware of and cannot deliver himself from the "lie in his right hand". Sure, I couldn't carve an idol if tried - but I know about that lie - not all of what I purport to be is truth. There is too much trash and tinsel.

I'd like to be like Stephen who "looked steadfastly to heaven" whilst his persecutors lobbed rocks at him. But maybe the two things go together and I don't like the idea of the rocks - I'm too much of a coward. To make this point (for those that care to listen) for this Thursday's American themed fancy dress I plan to go as Little Plum:

And as for luck, for which chance is sometimes mistaken - "Daughter," said the Hermit, "I have now lived a hundred and nine winters in this world and have never yet met any such thing as Luck. Them is something about all this that I do not understand: but if ever we need to know it, you may be sure that we shall."

In a Far Country

It is father's day and I got a surprise phone call from my younger daughter who has just moved to Australia. Two of my own sons and the son of a close friend now live in Alaska.  My other daughter is en route to Switzerland but thankfully only for a week.  Fifty years ago emmigration might have been goodbye for good - at least we have the internet now - but, even so, I reckon that either Alaska or Australia qualify as "a far country".

I have a much cherished book entitled "Forty Tales" by Stephen Southwold.  It was my mother's and she has written her name very formally, as if she was young at the time, inside the front cover.  This book is one of the few links I now have with her and with my childhood.  One of my favourite tales from this book starts:

The water colouring is my older sister's work.  To this day I am haunted by any grassy hill that disappears into the horizon.  What is special about these tales is the element of "wonder".  I may write at more length about this in a later blog.  For now the title "Along the path and far away" is sufficient: it evokes in me a great longing for I do not know what.

A similar sentiment is found in Lewis's "The horse and his boy" -

"But he was very interested in everything that lay to the North because no one ever went that way and he was never allowed to go there himself. When he was sitting out of doors mending the nets, and all alone, he would often look eagerly to the North. One could see nothing but a grassy slope running up to a level ridge and beyond that the sky with perhaps a few birds in it."

There is also the traditional song Over the hills and far away which leaves one wondering what exactly is over the hills and far away.

I get a similar feeling seeing or reading about water meeting grass as in an overflowing stream or a flash flood.

Phantastes, George Macdonald: "And, stranger still, where this carpet, which I had myself designed to imitate a field of grass and daisies, bordered the course of the little stream, the grass-blades and daisies seemed to wave in a tiny breeze that followed the water's flow; while under the rivulet they bent and swayed with every motion of the changeful current, as if they were about to dissolve with it, and, forsaking their fixedform, become fluent as the waters."

A far country implies a new paradigm that touches the depth of our soul: In a Far Country, Jack London "When a man journeys into a far country, he must be prepared to forget many of the things he has learned, and to acquire such customs as are inherent with existence in the new land; he must abandon the old ideals and the old gods, and oftentimes he must reverse the very codes by which his conduct has hitherto been shaped. To those who have the protean faculty of adaptability, the novelty of such change may even be a source of pleasure; but to those who happen to be hardened to the ruts in which they were created, the pressure of the altered environment is unbearable, and they chafe in body and in spirit under the new restrictions which they do not understand. This chafing is bound to act and react, producing divers evils and leading to various misfortunes. It were better for the man who cannot fit himself to the new groove to return to his own country; if he delay too long, he will surely die."  

Somewhere it says "A certain man planted a vineyard... and went into a far country for a long time."  The so called "Christian" belief system has of late been rather dumbed down, I suppose, to make it more palatable for the masses - rather like A-levels.  But in the original version there was a whole lot of "digging deep" and "far country" and "long time".  These hard-to-come-to-terms-with's are more in accord with my own experience than platitudes, sickly smiles and miracles that don't stand scrutiny.