Snow Makes Up Temperatures, No One Notices

During a press conference, White House press secretary Tony Snow was asked a question about the Iraqi Parliament taking off for the month the August. The question came as critical, since Iraq is in such chaos. Snow, defending the Iraqi Parliament, replied, “You know, it's 130 degrees in Baghdad in August”. Rebuttals to Snow concentrated on the fact that the Iraqi Parliament works in air conditioning, whereas American troops have to work all day in the heat. However, no one seemed to make the obvious point: it does not get to 130 degrees in Baghdad.

I have lived now for a year in west Texas, where it gets quite hot. And yet, I do not believe that the temperature has broken 105 degrees since I have been here. I thought to myself, if the temperature actually rises to 130 degrees in Baghdad, then it would be unbelievably hot. Doubtful of the number Snow provided, I looked it up and found that it was wrong: the average temperature in Baghdad in August is 108 degrees, with the record being 118 degrees. We cannot be charitable towards Snow and say that he was stating the heat index – which takes into account the effect of humidity on temperature – for there should be no heat index in Baghdad: it is a desert.

So what is the big deal? For starters, Snow was off by an average of a whopping 22 degrees. Think of a 22 degree difference at the colder end of the temperature scale: there is a big difference between freezing and 10 degrees. I am not debating with Snow over the fact that it is hot in Baghdad. Rather, I am perturbed that no one in the media caught on to Snow’s obviously incorrect figure. And, I think that this problem goes deeper than the fact that the media is typically uncritical of whatever comes out of the White House. (Frankly, I was even surprised that a reporter asked the question about the Iraqi Parliament taking off.) The deeper problem is this: Americans have no good understanding of the relative importance of numbers. We did not blink when someone told us the outrageously high figure of 130 degrees in Baghdad. Would we have blinked if someone told us 150? What about 212? How dumbed-down are we going to get?