Buffalo wrote:Darth J wrote:I really don't give a crap about his charts and graphs.
Clearly.
I don't give a crap about his charts and graphs on the same basis for not giving a crap about charts and graphs like this:
Darth J wrote:The issue is the validity of the assumptions underlying his charts and graphs. It's not simply a matter of disagreeing with the conclusions; it's disagreeing with the starting premises.
It's all defined in the book. I'd invite you to read chapter 7. Definitions of all these crimes are spelled out and referenced with thousands of sources. Again, I can't spend hours and hours reproducing the book for you here.
I do not need to read a single page of that book to know that he cannot come up with universal definitions of crimes and extrapolate data based on that. That's because law is not constant in one jurisdiction over time, let alone across multiple jurisdictions. (I'm referring to law because you said "crimes.")
Was "malice aforethought" an element in his definition of murder? That was the mens rea for murder in Utah a hundred years ago, but it isn't anymore. But yet it is still an element of murder in some jurisdictions (i.e., states). So if we are trying to come up with some universal definition of murder in the United States (or the world, or whatever) and extrapolate a base rate for murder on that, then guess what? If you include malice aforethought, than there hasn't been any murder in Utah for decades! Hooray! It must be because of our secularist post-Enlightenment morality that is independent of religion!
But if we don't include malice aforethought, then you know what happens? There was no murder in Utah in the 19th century, and murder rates have gone thought the roof since! Oh, no!