“So ‘Hurrucane Snoopy’ it is, right?”
Here we have a bias study that appears to have been infected with bias, designed to show bias, with no useful use for the data—even if it is valid, which is dubious—except to encourage bias!
Researchers at the University of Illinois and Arizona State University examined six decades of hurricane death rates according to gender, spanning 1950 and 2012. Of the 47 most deadly hurricanes, the female-named produced an average of 45 deaths compared to 23 deaths in male-named storms, or almost double the number of fatalities. They felt this was indicative of the fact that masculine-named storms were scarier to those in its path, so the female storms caused more death and destruction due to the trusting, sexist fools who didn’t take them seriously.
The problems with this study are legion, beginning with the fact that older hurricanes caused more damage than those of recent vintage (Katrina was left out of the study because it was deemed an outlier. It also would have blown up the data so completely that the study’s pre-cooked conclusions would be even less credible than they are.) when male names were used for the first time. Do you think advances in medicine, storm warnings and other factors contributed to the reduction in death totals since male-named storms were introduces? Naaaah!
To counter such critiques and make sure the “war on women” was expounded in a weather vein, the researchers quizzed subjects and obtained hypothetical data indicating that indeed, they tended to regard male-named hurricanes as more worthy of taking safety precautions. Do such surveys actually prove that actual hurricane victims died because they took inadequate precautions against “feminine” storms? No…unless you are a researcher who believed in the bias when they designed the study.
The research was a waste of time, a waste of funds, and a cautionary tale for those who have no skepticism about research as long as it confirms what they fervently want to believe.
And if this information were reliable, which it is not, what would be the practical applications of it? Storms named after serial killers and mass murderer? No, wait, that would be just one more incentive for infamy-seeking nut cases. OK, how about male black names, at least when the storm was headed at a state full of bigots? All those “white Hispanics” would sure skedaddle from Hurricane Trayvon! No, that would be encouraging bias. Well then how about giving all the storms girly names, so everyone associated hurricane death and destruction with the female gender?
Wouldn’t that be great? Wait…
I thing the researchers would have done well to interview those who lived through real hurricanes, and I suspect what they would have learned is this: while the media repeats the names of storms for convenience purposes, when you, your family and your property are in the path of one of these natural engines of death and destruction, all that matters is that it’s a hurricane, and what the Weather Service calls it doesn’t make a bit of difference.
______________________
Pointer: Althouse
Ethics Alarms 
Having lived in South Florida for 17 years, and having put up and taken down hurricane shutters more times than I care to count I can honestly say it doesn’t make an ounce of difference what the heck they name the thing. When you’re stock piling canned goods, filling your bath tub with “drinking” water, making sure you have batteries, propane, cash, prescription meds and bleach on hand and you’re listening to other hurricane survivors call into the local radio station saying things like “our prayers are with you Miami and Godspeed….” yeah, you really don’t care what the thing is called. You hunker down, listening to your windows and walls shake, rattle and roll and pray to God you have a roof over your head when it’s all said and done. Been there done that.
Me too. Many hurricanes in my childhood, and while we were cowering in the basement, it wasn’t Hazel or Helen, it was the HURRICANE!!!!
Came here for the ethics, stayed for the puns!
Liked “weather vein,” did you?
As did I. Well played, Jack.
–Dwayne
After considering the results of this study, all storms will henceforth be called Hurricane Satan.
And that is when I decided to murder America…
Watch out…if the NSA is listening in, or if the same vile busybody who called the authorities on Justin Carter is a lurker,that comment could get you a visit from the Secret Service or the FBI. And the sad part is, I’m not joking, though you were.
Then there WAS the joke about hurricanes with African-American names, which I won’t post here since it’s pretty racist, although the point is equally absurd.
At this point, I dare them.
It’s true. Some moron got on television and criticized the NWS for not giving storms “African-American” names- the modern ones tending to be contrived and meaningless. The implication being, of course, that the weathermen are racist honkies. Whatever…
Himmacanes are less destructive, who knew?
Why not move in the direction of ‘gender neutral’ (Unisex) names? Nature (Lake, Rain, Willow), colors (Blue, Grey, Indigo), countries or states (Dakota, India, Montana), surnames (Jackson, Mackenzie, Murphy), and politicians (Kennedy, Madison, Reagan).
This would further obscure agonizingly marginalizing references that do nothing but perpetuate an evil system of Patriarchy, while at the same time speak to emotionally gratifying truth.
Win win!
Well, off to my job as Secretary to the Assistant of the Deputy Assistant to the Director of Inclusionary Diversity Compliance at the U.W. Madison.
In my 13 years at my current job, I have directed in ten Mainstage seasons. In none of those years has there been major storm activity in this area. I dramaturged once, and we got a tropical storm. I sat out completely two years and Hurricanes Rita and Ike caused considerable local damage. Clearly, then, the directing rotation at a state university’s theatre program influences weather patterns. Thus, it makes perfect sense that the completely arbitrary naming of these storms affects their severity. Boom. Science.
(FWIW, the correlation of my production work to severe storms: absolutely true. Causality, not so much, perhaps.)
You may have found the answer to job security.
Research like this is why the “climate change” kooks are having such a hard time selling their asinine theories.
Ok I got a list of scary names: Beelzebub, Hitler, O.J., Judas Iscariot, Attila, and Dracula. I didn’t come up with any really scary female names except for some female politicians who will remain nameless lest I be accused of being of being partisan and sexist. How about some ancient evil Babylonian goddesses like Zuul?
Doesn’t Zuul make you smile? All I hear is Bill Murray’s voice saying, “Zuulie, you knucklehead..”
I nominate Cthulhu, Shub-niggurath, Yog-Sothoth, and Nyarlathotep as a small sample of alternate name. 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos_deities#Table_of_Great_Old_Ones
This is a stink? Come on progressives… Hurricanes are one of the few professions in which women achieve more and receive greater compensation that men…
What bothers me the most is that these universities are obtaining tax dollars to pay people who are classified as “experts”, that is to say having a PhD; or worse, those who are paid to challenge PhD candidate dissertations so as to prevent unproven hypothesis from becoming part of the scientific body of knowledge.