According to CNN, “gender bias might actually kill you.” A new study released by the National Academy claims that “feminine-named hurricanes (vs. masculine-named hurricanes) cause significantly more deaths, apparently because they lead to a lower perceived risk and consequently less preparedness.” The liberal media was thrilled to find this supposed scientific proof of sexism.
Ed Yong of the National Geographic found that the study lacked credibility. While it looked at the death tolls of hurricanes dating back to the 1950's, when hurricanes only had female names, male names weren’t introduced (due to cries of sexism of course) until 1979. Meanwhile, Yong writes, “hurricanes have also, on average, been getting less deadly over time.” Yong’s source, scientist Jeff Lazo, claims that the correlation may just be a statistical fluke, and “it could be that more people die in female-named hurricanes, simply because more people died in hurricanes on average before they started getting male names.”
National Academy of Sciences
By Laura Flint | June 5, 2014 | 12:35 PM EDT
