By “Abram N. Spangel”

I recently read Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception by New York University Professor Charles Seife. On the jacket cover, Professor Seife writes, ”Bogus mathematical arguments are being used to undermine our system of justice, to implement shortsighted policies that threaten our security, to dismantle our social institutions, and to undermine our voting system.”

Much of Proofiness was slanted against Republicans. And Professor Seife seems to have bona fida liberal credentials and supporters as his work has been praised by The New York Times, The Washington Post and Salon.com.

Thus, I found it shocking that the one sitting US Representative outed for his deception and chicanery was none other than our very own Rush Holt. In hundreds of pages of well-researched narrative, Professor Seife documents how the politician’s policies—such as Voter ID, voter suppression, redistricting and manipulation of census results—subvert elections and cheat the electorate of its right to have its views fairly represented in elections. (Perhaps this isn’t surprising given Holt’s refusal to even issue a statement critical of the New Black Panthers’ intimidation of voters at a polling station in Philadelphia in 2008.)

Further, Professor Seife provides the reader with insight into Holt’s history of using seemingly compelling statistics for his own interests at taxpayer expense. Professor Seife writes:

“In 1992, future New Jersey congressman Rush Holt was the spokesperson for the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a high-tech facility devoted to fusion research. Unfortunately, the future of fusion in the United States was getting increasingly grim. As spokesperson, Holt had to try to justify to the public—and to legislators in charge of the budget—why the laboratory should consume tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in the quest for fusion energy.

Holt bolstered his case with several dramatic slides, scatter plots of data…showing that the more energy a society consumes, the longer its citizens live. The message was that taxpayers should pour money into the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory to research future sources of energy. (Fund us if you want your children to live.)

Holt’s graphs showed that there was a tight relationship—a “correlation”—between power consumption and life expectancy; the higher the power consumption, the higher the life expectancy. However, it’s a classic mistake to say that you can increase life expectancy by increasing power consumption. Power plants don’t lead to long life any more than garbage, Internet usage, newspapers, fast food, or edible underwear do. Holt’s presentation, in fact, was a vehicle for a kind of proofiness that I like to call causuisitry.”

Rush Holt has been an embarrassment for central New Jersey for the past twelve years. However, with explosive revelations like these, Rush Holt is on the verge of becoming a national disgrace. If he is re-elected, he might well be indicted for vote tampering before the next session of Congress convenes.

Postscript:  I thought the wackadoos supporting Holt were in favor of reducing energy consumption. I suppose drive-by values can’t get in the way of gorging at the taxpayer-funded trough.