Statistical comparisons

Submitted by Charles R.L. Power (United States), Jul 28, 2011 at 11:12

This is what the term "exception to the rule" means. When there is a general rule, such as followers of Islam being responsible for gruesome atrocities, one remembers the exceptions by name for years afterward.

I read an article where a Muslim tried to correct the impression that Islam leads to violence by showing that since 9/11/2001, only 45 of 125 known terrorist incidents in the U.S. had involved Muslims. I did the math on this and discovered that this meant that 1.2% of the population were responsible for 36% of terrorist acts, and that a random Muslim was about 50 times as likely to be a terrorist as a random non-Muslim. (References, figures, & spreadsheets available on request. Email karl.pov@verizon.net.)

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