WERE YOU BAD AT MATH TOO?

I was lousy at math. Like almost everyone I knew. Except straight-A Stanley who could somehow juggle all those numbers and logarithms in his head to come up with startlingly correct answers every time...!

I hated Stanley, and now his spirit is back to haunt me. Hal Varian, chief economist for Google, predicts, "The sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians." A liberal arts major, I ask myself why has my world betrayed me like this? To live forever in an age of Stanleys?

The nation's statisticians are crunching numbers faster than ever. Among their latest totals:
* By 2050 Whites here will be 46%, Blacks 12%, Hispanics 30%, Asian 8%
* By 2050 over 30% of American Whites and Blacks will be living alone
* By 2050 33% of the rich country's populations will be over 60
* By 2050 Muslims will be emerging as a majority in many regions of Europe

Being statisticians, these experts always seem to leave it to others to draw conclusions. They tell us they're not into making value judgments. Just the facts, mam, just the facts. Which leaves their numbers hanging out there to be celebrated and/or feared according to one's personal attitudes (for those who demand defining your terms, I define attitudes as emotions that have hardened).

One of the more prominent attitudes by White-Christians like Patrick Buchanan is that these statistics spell the decline of White Christian supremacy in the western world. You're a pretty smart guy, Pat, so you may be right. On the other hand, I always try to remember that a good scare always seems worth more to people than good advice.

So here's some advice from some other statisticians. [One needs to remember that, like medical reports, statisticians come in all different types; so all you have to do is pick the one whose numbers you prefer!]. There are statisticians who (1) insist that White birth rates have begun to rise again ever since 2005, as reported by statistician Hans-Peter Kohler in the journal "Nature" (2) insist Christianity is really on the numerical rise in most parts of the world, as reported by the Vatican (3) insist most Muslims are eventually integrated into their new societies, as reported in the New York Times.

But for anyone who's confused by such conflicting statistics, there's always world-renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins to the rescue. Sayeth he and fellow biologists, essentially we are mostly what our genes say we are. I take that to mean that if we wait long enough, evolution will settle most things for the best. Or to put that another way -- everything works out in the end, and if it doesn't, then it's not the end!

Ahhh, exactly the way Stanley might have put it.