Remember that study that I did that shows red states (2008 election) rank 32.4 in education on average and blue states average 20.5?

If you are a red stater, you probably can't read, so no.

Obvious tag doesn't believe this.

People do poorly when tested on material that they hold contrafactual beliefs about?

Somebody get that guy a mustache.

You mean everybody is biased?

I expect this article and it's conclusions will be forgotten almost instantly.

I am sure the Wall Street Journal will run this redacted article.
SURE

Front page headline, tenth page redaction, I'm sure.

Das Kiwizoid: Front page headline, tenth page redaction retraction, I'm sure.

GodsTumor: I am sure the Wall Street Journal will run this redacted article retraction.
SURE

FTFY'all

For reference, the author tested 17 different questions and totaled up the number of questions people got wrong to figure out how often people "knew what ain't so". Those questions were:

1) Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.
2) Mandatory licensing professional services increases the price of those services.
3) Overall, the standard of living is higher than it was 30 years ago.
4) Rent control leads to housing shortages.
5) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly.
6) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited.
7) Free trade leads to unemployment.
8) Minimum wages laws raise unemployment.
9) A dollar means more to a rich person than a poor person.
10) Making abortion illegal would lead to more black market abortions.
11) Legalizing drugs would give more wealth to and power to street gangs and organized crime.
12) Drug prohibition fails to reduce people's access to drugs.
13) Gun control laws fail to to reduce people's access to guns.
14) By participating in the marketplace in the United States, immigrants reduce the economic well-being of American citizens.
15) When a country goes to war, its citizens experience an improvement in economic well-being.
16) When two people complete a voluntary transaction, they both necessarily come away better off.
17) When two people complete a voluntary transaction, it is necessarily the case that everyone else is unaffected by their transaction.

Sabyen91: Man On Fire: Obvious tag doesn't believe this.

Actually the Obvious tag is pissed that they released a study with such horribly slanted methodology in the first place.

/Good for him with his mea culpa, I guess.

Except it wasn't. It was a non-apology apology. It basically said, "I was right at the time, but new data shows I'm wrong so I have to admit it, but everyone is guilty, so it's not my fault."

The guy posted a piece of crap that was clearly biased as hell, got called on it, thought he was going to definitively prove his case, and then got his ass handed to him. The only credit he gets is admitting it before someone bigger than ThinkProgress gets a hold of the story so he can be out in front saying he admitted it was wrong.

He notes "shouldn't a college professor know better?" and then goes on to explain why they shouldn't...so, yeah, no points for this idiot.

So he doesn't say that the results are wrong, just the methodology.

Well, that's great.

goatleggedfellow: Screw bias; This guy's problem is that he's an arrogant dick. A bunch of universal, yes or no, black or white questions gave confusing results? No shiat.

What does the gun question have to do with economics.

Sabyen91: It wasn't even a scientific study, either. Take this question, "a dollar means more to a poor person than it does to a rich person (disagree)". I am supposed to believe that it isn't true?

I think you're reading that backwards. The author is claiming the statement is true.

goatleggedfellow: jso2897: goatleggedfellow: Article Title:
I Was Wrong, and So Are You

Libertarians: Collapsing in the face of human nature and real-world complexity since...I don't know, ever.

Well, yeah - when they grow up. I was a Libertarian - actual card carrying party member.
But I grew up. It doesn't really matter if you are a conservative, libertarian, socialist - every thing you know is wrong, and you are full of shiat.
Ideology is for children - adults do pragmatism.

Seconded.

I believe the motion carries.

Serious Black:

1) Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.

Depends on the restriction, but in general anything that reduces supply will increase price.

2) Mandatory licensing professional services increases the price of those services.

Basically, same as above. Reduce supply, increase price.

3) Overall, the standard of living is higher than it was 30 years ago.

Globally or domestically? Probably yes to both questions, but still it's vague.

4) Rent control leads to housing shortages.

If you artificially create a price ceiling, below the point which equilibrium for prices would normally be, then some actors will not participate in the market. In other words, yes.

5) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly.

This is definitively wrong.

6) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited.

Exploited is a pretty subjective term.

7) Free trade leads to unemployment.

Globally or domestically? When two nations begin a policy of free trade, the more labor intensive nation will tend to siphon work from the capital intensive nation. All other things being equal.

8) Minimum wages laws raise unemployment.

If a minimum wage is higher than the equilibrium point of supply and demand for a job, then an employer will hire less of that job than they would otherwise.

9) A dollar means more to a rich person than a poor person.

I don't see why it would.

10) Making abortion illegal would lead to more black market abortions.

Anytime a good or service with demand is banned, a black market emerges.

11) Legalizing drugs would give more wealth to and power to street gangs and organized crime.

It should do just the opposite by eliminating much of the black market.

12) Drug prohibition fails to reduce people's access to drugs.

I'm sure it has some effect on access, however without effecting demand, such laws typically raise the price of the good or service until a black market will supply the good/service in spite of the risks.

13) Gun control laws fail to to reduce people's access to guns.

I'm sure they have some effect on access, however without effecting demand, such laws typically raise the price of the good or service until a black market will supply the good/service in spite of the risks.

14) By participating in the marketplace in the United States, immigrants reduce the economic well-being of American citizens.

They increase the supply of labor, therefore decreasing the wages (price) of workers. However, they are also consumers, and therefore increase the demand of goods and services. It's probably close to a net wash over all.

15) When a country goes to war, its citizens experience an improvement in economic well-being.

I'm not sure what the definition of "economic well-being" is, but if the country increases government spending for any reason, it will increase GDP.

16) When two people complete a voluntary transaction, they both necessarily come away better off.

No

17) When two people complete a voluntary transaction, it is necessarily the case that everyone else is unaffected by their transaction.

No

Sabyen91: Skyrmion: Sabyen91: It wasn't even a scientific study, either. Take this question, "a dollar means more to a poor person than it does to a rich person (disagree)". I am supposed to believe that it isn't true?

I think you're reading that backwards. The author is claiming the statement is true.

Oh, upon further review you are absolutely correct.

NP, it's tough to navigate the series of negations.


Sabyen91: Seabon: 5) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly.

This is definitively wrong.

Ok, I haven't read past this but you are definitively wrong. If the market share is 100% is certainly is a monopoly.

I think the point is that the company with the largest market share is not by definition a monopoly.


The one I don't like the answer to is this one:

15) When a country goes to war, its citizens experience an improvement in economic well-being.

The only real answer is "it depends". For the US, it would, but ask Eritrea how that's working out for them.

Study maker is a moron who concerns himself with absolutes.

That gives him the world view of a a 5 or 6 year old..

Sabyen91: If the market share is 100% is certainly is a monopoly.

Nope. I could be the world's only manufacturer of screen doors for submarines. I would have 100% marketshare, but no one would consider me a monopoly (in the legal, anti-trust sense). To be a monopoly in a legal sense, you not only have to have dominant marketshare, but you also have to use that market position to manipulate the market and stamp out competition.

It takes balls to admit you farked up, and gigantic balls to admit you farked up with a paper that got front-page news. Kudos to the professor.

...Of course, I will note that random farkers had noticed the (rather massive) bias in the original study and pointed out that conservatives would probably do just as badly on tests with questions chosen to favor liberal ideology. So it took this guy 2 years to realize what a bunch of internet nobodies realized, giant balls or no.

Skyrmion: 15) When a country goes to war, its citizens experience an improvement in economic well-being.

The only real answer is "it depends". For the US, it would, but ask Eritrea how that's working out for them.

Also depends on whether or not the country in question already has a large military-industrial complex. People look at WWII in America and see it as an explosion of economic growth. Of course it was - the US was not geared up to produce mass quantities of war materiel. So because there was high demand with low supply, the market rushed to meet that demand and a lot of money went flowing from the government's coffers to those of the weapons and materiel manufacturers. It did take a bit for it to get going, which is why we had such a small amount of ships in the Pacific during the first year or so of WWII. We simply didn't have the ship-building capacity, so not only did the country get the economic benefit of the government spending tons of money on ships, but on building shipyards too.

Flashforward to GWB's Iraq sandbox war, and you have a completely different country. Now you're looking at a country with a well established defense program, one that was, in fact, bloated and out of control already. There was no need to build new shipyards. Hell, there was no need to build new ships! There just wasn't the sort of stuff you would normally need to buy to gear up a nation. Sure, tons of money got spent, but unlike the spending in WWII that went primarily from the government to the actual workers, "Let's go fark with Saddam" sent its cash into black holes of special interest with no intention of actually getting that wealth into the hands of the US labor base.

By the way, this is something I'd love to have a conservative explain...and I don't mean a "Fark Conservative" but someone who would answer it honestly - why is wartime spending, which is the government pouring money into the private sector, considered a good thing by conservatives, but stimulus and/or social spending is considered bad? Why is the government spending money to blow up people half a world away better than feeding, clothing and sheltering people here in the US? I assume the answer has something to do with "freedom" or "spreading democracy", but I think the more honest answer is there isn't any difference at all, only that conservatives see killing people as more important than saving them.

jso2897: mrlewish: Study maker is a moron who concerns himself with absolutes.

That gives him the world view of a a 5 or 6 year old..

On the "micro" level of his specific views, yes - but on the macro level, his overall observation regarding our blind spots pertaining to our personal ideologies is right on.

He "proved" confirmation bias exists. Well...I guess it's a step up. Perhaps next year he can learn what "sample bias" means.

Dr. Whoof: Skyrmion: 15) When a country goes to war, its citizens experience an improvement in economic well-being.

The only real answer is "it depends". For the US, it would, but ask Eritrea how that's working out for them.

Also depends on whether or not the country in question already has a large military-industrial complex. People look at WWII in America and see it as an explosion of economic growth. Of course it was - the US was not geared up to produce mass quantities of war materiel. So because there was high demand with low supply, the market rushed to meet that demand and a lot of money went flowing from the government's coffers to those of the weapons and materiel manufacturers. It did take a bit for it to get going, which is why we had such a small amount of ships in the Pacific during the first year or so of WWII. We simply didn't have the ship-building capacity, so not only did the country get the economic benefit of the government spending tons of money on ships, but on building shipyards too.

Flashforward to GWB's Iraq sandbox war, and you have a completely different country. Now you're looking at a country with a well established defense program, one that was, in fact, bloated and out of control already. There was no need to build new shipyards. Hell, there was no need to build new ships! There just wasn't the sort of stuff you would normally need to buy to gear up a nation. Sure, tons of money got spent, but unlike the spending in WWII that went primarily from the government to the actual workers, "Let's go fark with Saddam" sent its cash into black holes of special interest with no intention of actually getting that wealth into the hands of the US labor base.

By the way, this is something I'd love to have a conservative explain...and I don't mean a "Fark Conservative" but someone who would answer it honestly - why is wartime spending, which is the government pouring money into the private sector, considered a good thing by conservatives, but stimulus and/or social spending is considered bad? Why is the government spending money to blow up people half a world away better than feeding, clothing and sheltering people here in the US? I assume the answer has something to do with "freedom" or "spreading democracy", but I think the more honest answer is there isn't any difference at all, only that conservatives see killing people as more important than saving them.

As an actual conservative, the answer to your question is depressingly simple.

You can't own stock in public works programs. All the money goes toward materials, labor, and permits. If you want to make money off of a public works project, you have to do it through graft, which takes both balls and more effort than most conservatives are willing to undertake.

You can own stock in defense contractors. An investor can passively benefit from a war without having to lift a finger or put himself at risk. Plus, war material exhausts itself and must be repurchased.

In other words, government largesse is only socialism when it benefits other people.

'Remember that one poll that came out that liberals disagree with? Well there was something wrong with it, and in this case, it's the same thing that can be wrong with virtually every poll, but we're not going to pay a bit of attention to that part'

It fits in with the liberal mantra: People never reject their ideas, the just didn't understand them or they were tricked.

Riothamus: As an actual conservative, the answer to your question is depressingly simple.

You can't own stock in public works programs. All the money goes toward materials, labor, and permits. If you want to make money off of a public works project, you have to do it through graft, which takes both balls and more effort than most conservatives are willing to undertake.

You can own stock in defense contractors. An investor can passively benefit from a war without having to lift a finger or put himself at risk. Plus, war material exhausts itself and must be repurchased.

In other words, government largesse is only socialism when it benefits other people.

So the answer is, conservatives prefer greed over doing anything to improve the world for anyone else. "fark you, I got mine" writ large. Not surprising really, but it underlines why conservatives need to never, ever, be given any sort of power in this or any other nation. They can be advisers to those in power, perhaps, but never in control themselves, or...well, see the world as it exists today.

Sabyen91: Riothamus: You can own stock in defense contractors. An investor can passively benefit from a war without having to lift a finger or put himself at risk. Plus, war material exhausts itself and must be repurchased.

All of what you said used to be true. We no longer build warships or aircraft or munitions at a rate like we did in past wars. We already have most of it before the war starts.

And that's why, if you're totally soulless, you buy stock in "military contractors" that feed the troops and provide essential supply-line support that used to be done in-house for a tenth of the cost.


NOTE: I'm not the sort of conservative who advocates this behavior. It absolutely disgusts me. I still haven't gotten a good explanation of why we shouldn't just nationalize our defense contractors. It's not like Lockheed and General Dynamics get much of their budget outside of governmental contracts. Why should we let them lobby us for yet more money and let them pay dividends to people who don't do a farking thing for national defense? Just nationalize that shiat and put the military in charge of it. Generals and specialists can take over for the boards of directors and oversee procurement. Cutting out the middlemen would save a ton of money and prevent unnecessary projects like the B-1 bomber and the Osprey.

And when's the farking F35 gonna be ready? We already know it's gonna have a shiatty thrust/weight ratio. Lockheed has really gone to shiat after Kelly Johnson's death.

A few things:

- Most of the questions on this survey have quite subjective answers, but he assigns an objective yes/no answer. There's a number of questions that ask about "economic well-being" without definition of that completely subjective term. There's also a number of questions that look at an economics demand/supply curve version of topics that could be interpreted on a bigger picture basis. For example, the statement "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." Any house to be sold in my city has to have an authorized inspector check it up and down, and the findings have to be disclosed. This is certainly a "restriction", and makes the overall price of housing slightly more expensive. But this restriction greatly reduces the probability that your new house is a money pit with massive structural issues, and thus may very well offset the extra cost in terms of "affordability" of the house, since there is much less uncertainty in a home purchase. Is anything like that acknowledged? No - if you think that any restriction on housing makes the house more affordable you are clearly not educated.

- The professor would have to be an idiot to think that his original survey wouldn't have had more on the left providing "wrong" answers. Clearly that was what it was designed to do.

- With that being the case, he didn't have to do a follow up with questions likely to be "missed" by conservatives. So there's that.

The same thing was true about that poll last year (new window) that was trumpeted by various people as "Fox News viewers are the most misinformed". Most questions on the survey the more "conservative" answer was the wrong one, and lo and behold people who watched Fox gave more wrong answers on average.

Sabyen91: Seabon: 5) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly.

This is definitively wrong.

Ok, I haven't read past this but you are definitively wrong. If the market share is 100% is certainly is a monopoly.

The statement is wrong. The statement does not say "100%." It says "largest." The word largest implies there is at least another company with some market share to compare to, otherwise it would use the word "all," or some other phrase denoting complete market share.