Don't do the math.....

Generali

....especially if you're good at maths:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/10/20/math-only-agree-with/dNXiuubRILEUqtQ8IzUqEP/story.html

To make a personal point before I quote the start of the reportage, I'm a believer in experts by-and-large. I realise that doesn't sit well with the British tradition of amateurism but my belief is that someone that has spent years studying a subject is likely to understand it more than a bright person who has read a couple of news articles and formed a prejudice but then....

It’s comforting, in these polarized times, to blame the idiots. Our failure to come together on issues like health care and gun control, climate change and economic policy, isn’t our fault, we like to tell ourselves. It’s a result of the talk-radio blowhards, the cable TV know-nothings, and the blind partisans—on the left and right—too dumb to look at the data and do the math.


But now new research is suggesting something different. The problem is not people who can’t do the math. The problem is the ones who can.....


In the study, conducted this past spring, over 1,100 participants were asked to use numbers to assess whether a particular intervention had worked—either a skin rash treatment or a gun ban. In assessing the rash treatment, which had no political implications, those with lower “numeracy,” or math skills, were, as you might guess, far less successful than their “high-numerate” peers: They were likely to get the question right about one-third of the time, compared to two-thirds of the time for the group with better math skills.......


High-numerate conservative Republicans were far more likely to come to the right, data-based conclusion in the gun ban question if they had been told that crime increased—a result that squares with their ideology. High-numerate liberal Democrats were far more likely to get it right if crime decreased. Perhaps most troubling, Kahan found, the numerate people were more polarized than those who struggled with the math: They were 45 percentage points more likely to get the right answer if the data backed up their views than if it didn’t. Low-numerate people, by comparison, were far less polarized.


“This study suggests that they’re using their greater numeracy in a kind of strategic, opportunistic way,” said Kahan, a professor of law and psychology. “They’re using their better ability to make sense of the evidence in a way that gratifies their state and fits their ideology.”

Perhaps we're better off being strategically dumb....?

vivatifosi

I think confirmation bias is an issue with lots of groups Gen, not just Democrats who are good with maths. It's a big issue in any social science question. I can remember having that drummed into me studying A Level sociology - the need to be value free when doing research. It's the same in economics, politics, business...

It also raises the bigger questions of who is manipulating who and what, and why they are doing it. For example:
1) Why did the newspaper pick that subset of people to ask about immigration and are they a truly random subset?
2) Why did the local council ask a particular question in a particular way in their consultation, but not ask the question that you think is important?
3) Why do people discussing house prices choose a particular subset, rather than a different one which may tell a different story?
4) Why do the Telegraph and Guardian read the same report, but write about it in totally different ways and quoting different elements?

It's too easy to be guilty of and if honest, we've probably all done it at some point. It's not always about the data set, but big questions exist about what people see in a data set as well as why that data set was chosen to start with.

macaque_2

Generali wrote: »

How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?” The Answer: Four, because calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.

And as with people, it is the lefties that can be nervous and unpredictable



"while nervous dogs have a left-dominated swish"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24746107

TruckerT

macaque wrote: »

And as with people, it is the lefties that can be nervous and unpredictable



"while nervous dogs have a left-dominated swish"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24746107[/QUOTE]

I would have said that it is the unpredictability of the lefties which leads to the nervousness of the Right.

People who have studied a subject for years are likely to have very fixed views. In the case of economics, and other social sciences, the person on the street is quite likely to have a better grip on reality. Unfortunately, it is the people who have done the knowledge who end up inventing the rules, and usually it is to their own advantage.

TruckerT