On April 22, 2015 David Hemenway published There's scientific consensus on guns -- and the NRA won't like it through the Los Angeles Times. In this Op-Ed Hemenway used a combination of ethos and logos to aid in his argument that strong gun laws reduce homicide rates. Hemenway achieved this through polling to determine objectively whether there was scientific consensus on firearms.
Hemenway's first step was to put together a list of relevant scientists that may only qualify should they have published on firearms in a peer-reviewed scientific journal within the last four years. Through this criteria he was able to gather more than 280 contactable authors. While I appreciate Hemenway's devotion to finding relevant polling subjects I am hardly convinced that a sample size of 280 is enough to come to a clear consensus as his article's title would imply-- especially when only about half of that sample size actually returns with a response.
Through this survey method Hemenway accumulated that data of many scientific opinions on the subject of the accessibility of guns in the home in correlation to homicides and suicides. Though I understand that if any opinion on the subject were to matter it would be that of this particular sample size, at the end of the day an opinion is still just an opinion. Hemenway remedies this issue after he notes that the results of the surveys did not surprise him"because the scientific evidence is overwhelming". This is when he brings in data found by other researchers.
I would argue that Hemenway is credible as he has written over 130 articles and five books in the fields of economics and public health. And I do agree with Hemenway that while scientific consensus isn't always right, it does provide some backbone to a view on an argument.
No comments:
Post a Comment