Seasonal(?) infographics
The New York Times has an amazing infographic of the World’s Greatest Atrocities, that I’ve been looking for an excuse to link to.
And the seasonal link? Today in the Catholic/Anglican/Lutheran churches (or tomorrow, in the Eastern Orthodox churches) is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the children killed by Herod, and remembered in the famous Coventry Carol.
According to Wikipedia
Byzantine liturgy estimated 14,000 Holy Innocents while an early Syrian list of saints stated the number at 64,000. Coptic sources raise the number to 144,000 and place the event on 29 December. Taking the narrative literally and judging from the estimated population of Bethlehem, the Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) more soberly suggested that these numbers were inflated, and that probably only between six and twenty children were killed in the town, with a dozen or so more in the surrounding areas.
It’s easy to magnify the atrocities committed by our enemies, minimize those of our side, and simply forget about those committed by and against people on the other side of the world.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »