> One trick to circumvent this is to report the OPPOSITE conclusion first, and then say, 'actually, it was the opposite' after the listener says 'well, duh.'
Study finds political bias improves perception of verifiable facts.
I don't think I heard a lot of "well, duh".
> In reality, we don't know until we test... We have a lot of stories and biases that we carry all over the place, some are useful, most are shorthand, and many will lead us to wrong conclusions.
And even when we test, we don't really know, because we don't know whether we're talking about the same thing. What does "immigrant" mean? Are you still an immigrant after having lived in the US for 30 years? Is a naturalized citizen still an immigrant, or does he cease to be an immigrant when he becomes a citizen? Do you consider the children of an immigrant to be an immigrant? If so, for how many generations? Are you absolutely sure that everybody you talk to answers these questions the same way you do?
I'm often surprised how vague these political surveys are and how loose they play with language. And I'm even more surprised when they then use the data to make strong calls.
I'm pretty sure if you define the words, you get different results, e.g. ask about "immigrants in the last 10 years", or say "immigrants who have not become citizens that immigrated in the last 80 years". When you only use vague terms, you're not really asking what people believe the numbers to be, you're asking what people understand the term to mean AND what they believe the numbers to be for that understanding.
A current example is asking about racism, where it's no longer just academia where you might encounter something like "systemic effects disadvantaging local minority populations" as the working definition, while the average person might understand it closer to "discrimination based on race". You'll get very different responses based on what definition the person is working with, even when you ask about the same metric, e.g. "how often do you witness racism in your work place?"
Sure, but that's just giving people compliments or confirming their world view, isn't it? I did understand the comment to mean that we find things obvious after we hear about them presented as the result of a study. I don't believe that at all, but I'm very much with you that it's correct with a modification: we find them obvious after hearing about them if they agree with our world view.
I don't think that "ideology lessens your ability to perceive reality" falls under worldview, though, and I cannot imagine that anybody was surprised by the result itself. That doesn't make the study useless, it's interesting and important to know how strong the effect is, whether it changes over time or can be negated etc. But other than that? Study finds that people shot with guns die more often than control group. I don't think you need to be an anti-gun-activist to say "well, duh".
More importantly: how did independents and apolitical people guess? Were they closer to the "real" numbers?
Red sky at night, shepherds' delight. Red sky at morning, shepherds take warning.
That's true, but there are different kinds of facts, and the argument isn't meant for all of them. "Is water wet? Study finds overwhelming bipartisan agreement!" Finally some common ground.
Study finds political bias improves perception of verifiable facts.
I don't think I heard a lot of "well, duh".
> In reality, we don't know until we test... We have a lot of stories and biases that we carry all over the place, some are useful, most are shorthand, and many will lead us to wrong conclusions.
And even when we test, we don't really know, because we don't know whether we're talking about the same thing. What does "immigrant" mean? Are you still an immigrant after having lived in the US for 30 years? Is a naturalized citizen still an immigrant, or does he cease to be an immigrant when he becomes a citizen? Do you consider the children of an immigrant to be an immigrant? If so, for how many generations? Are you absolutely sure that everybody you talk to answers these questions the same way you do?
I'm often surprised how vague these political surveys are and how loose they play with language. And I'm even more surprised when they then use the data to make strong calls.
I'm pretty sure if you define the words, you get different results, e.g. ask about "immigrants in the last 10 years", or say "immigrants who have not become citizens that immigrated in the last 80 years". When you only use vague terms, you're not really asking what people believe the numbers to be, you're asking what people understand the term to mean AND what they believe the numbers to be for that understanding.
A current example is asking about racism, where it's no longer just academia where you might encounter something like "systemic effects disadvantaging local minority populations" as the working definition, while the average person might understand it closer to "discrimination based on race". You'll get very different responses based on what definition the person is working with, even when you ask about the same metric, e.g. "how often do you witness racism in your work place?"