Statistical Mysteries

As mentioned last week, a communist newspaper in Norway recently reported that Gates of Vienna readers are mostly over 65, ill-educated, single, and childless. This came as a surprise to this blog’s owners, and we were anxious to learn more…

Let’s back up. Regular readers will remember the informative analysis provided by the well-known scholars Andreas Malm and Tor Bach via the Norwegian state broadcasting service:

Single, childless men over 65 years, with little or no education are overrepresented on Islam hostile websites, according to a survey done by Klassekampen [“Class Struggle” — a Norwegian communist newspaper].

Klassekampen has used the internet analysis tool Alexa to examine eight Islam hostile websites including Gates of Vienna, Jihad Watch, The Brussels Journal, Islam Watch and Atlas Shrugged [sic].

According to data that Klassekampen has looked at the age group of the visitors to these sites range from 65 years and above. Men are clearly over-represented and most of them don’t have an education beyond primary school. Few have children, and those who visit these sites do so from their own homes and not from work or school.

The data correspond well with membership groups of various extreme right-wing parties in Europe, the journalist and author of “The hatred against Muslims” Andreas Malm says.

[…]

He is supported by editor of the periodical Vepsen, Tor Bach. This group of elderly people shares some common traits, he says.

“They are characterized by a strong distrust of society and democratic principles. They also sincerely believe that someone is out to harm them,” Bach says. He doesn’t wish to generalize too much, but he basically believes that this group consists of angry and frustrated individuals who feel marginalized when their views are ignored. [emphasis added]

Such are the demographics of Gates of Vienna’s readership. We are indeed fortunate that these accomplished Norwegian researchers were willing to take time out from their busy academic schedules to perform such a useful service for a minor American blog.

The post that included the translated article produced an enthusiastic response from our readers. After more than fifty of them volunteered their demographic details in the comments, I collated and graphed the results in a follow-up post.

Later, prompted by the translated article, I visited the Alexa website in search of the raw data behind the Klassekampen analysis. The graphic below is based on the surprising Alexa statistics. The bar graphs indicate which demographic categories are under-represented relative to the larger population of internet users (the green bars on the left side) versus those over-represented (the blue bars on the right side):


Some of these results are not wildly at variance with Mr. Malm’s assertions — yes, Alexa agrees that the average GoV reader is quite a bit older than the average MTV viewer — but others are very different. As you can see, the educational level of Gates of Vienna readers bulges significantly at the post-graduate level, contrary to the communists’ exhaustive study.

This result is perplexing. If I weren’t confident of the intellectual rigor and journalistic integrity of Klassekampen, NRK, and Messrs. Malm and Bach, I would assume they had made up their conclusions (“…most of them don’t have an education beyond primary school”) out of whole cloth.

As it is, the only possible explanation is that the demographic makeup of our readership has shifted drastically in the brief interval since those doughty researchers conducted their study.

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After the second post, I was hoping to extend our own demographic statistics so that we would have more data to compare with the mysteriously incongruent investigation conducted by Andreas Malm and Tor Bach. I was in luck — the follow-up post on this topic produced even more participants who volunteered their vital stats. From the comments on that post and several emails I was able to enter 99 new records into the database, giving us a sample size of 150.

Those participants ranged in age from 15 to 80. The average age went up slightly to 47, as did the level of education: the typical GoV reader managed to make it just over a third of the way through grad school.

27% women of the volunteers were women, up slightly from the initial sample. 59% of respondents were married, and our group had a combined total of 233 kids, or 1.5 each. Since there were only a few responses from both halves of a married couple, this figure correlates closely with a per-woman fertility rate for the group.

As in my previous report, I constructed a Concupiscence Index for everyone who volunteered. It counts a point for being married and an additional point for each child. A scattergram of the distribution is below, color-coded by sex:


Once again, the women are distinctly older and more concupiscent than the men. Dymphna says that’s because younger women are so busy raising their kids that they don’t have time for such foolish activities as reading Counterjihad blogs.

The level of education of our readers is illustrated by the chart below, with its accompanying data table:

Level		%
< High school		1.3%
High school		10.7%
Bachelor’s		49.3%
Master’s		26.7%
Ph.D.		12.0%

And this is the age distribution:

Range		%
0-19		0.7%
20-29		10.7%
30-39		16.7%
40-49		30.0%
50-59		20.0%
60-69		16.0%
70 & up		6.0%

We’ve covered the regional distribution of our traffic (based on site meter stats) in several previous posts. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t changed much since last time: about half our visitors are American, a third are from Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, and the rest are distributed throughout Central and Western Europe (particularly Scandinavia), with a smattering in India, South America, the Far East, and the Arabian Peninsula.

Data on the professional status of our readers was scantier and harder to pull out, but here’s a rough breakdown of those who self-identified (with some overlap between groups):

• 18 engineers
  
• 6 veterans or serving members of the military
  
• 3 pilots
  
• 4 professors
  
• 4 teachers
  
• 2 physicians
  
• 8 computer specialists and/or software developers
  
• 3 musicians

Other categories for which readers self-identified showed:

• One black and five whites
  
• One gay person and one heterosexual
  
• Ten Christians, two Jews, and six atheists

One is left with the distinct impression that the dataset collected via email and comments is hardly representative of the same group chronicled by the distinguished gentlemen in Norway.

However, I must emphasize that our sample was self-selected. The above report is therefore not formally meaningful as a statistical analysis.

Also, since right-wingers are known to be habitual liars (just read the Norwegian press if you don’t believe me), some of our participants may have fudged their data to put one over on the ever-gullible Baron.

You never can tell!

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There’s only one troubling aspect to this demographic breakdown: the average number of children per respondent.

1.5 is better than the European average, but still well below replacement level. That won’t do: in a few short years we will be in desperate need of a second generation of dedicated Counterjihad activists. And maybe even a third.

Everyone needs to get down to the serious business of begetting children. Surely you remember how…?

If not, I’m certain that instructional materials are available on the Internet.

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Dymphna was moved by the “anecdotal evidence” in many of the new comments. She hopes to write a separate post about them when she’s well enough, perhaps as part of our next fundraiser (coming up soon).

In the meantime, check out the comments section on the “Demography is Destiny” post.

What a rich and varied crowd you all are!