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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Politics wrecks your ability to do math(s)
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
I've just read this fascinating article about how people (especially highly numerate people) lose their ability to do maths if the correct answer clashes with a viewpoint they hold firmly. What do you reckon? Does it chime with your experiences, is the study reasonable, what are the implications...?
Food for thought for folks like me who have strong political views and consider themselves to be pretty numerate and generally highly educated!
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Sounds plausible to me.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
It would be fascinating to see a similar study repeated for a left wing dog-whistle issue as well as the right wing example of gun laws.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
It would be fascinating to see a similar study repeated for a left wing dog-whistle issue as well as the right wing example of gun laws.
Would be, though it kind of shows the result already, (the results showed the left-wingers doing the same, in opposite direction). So it's enough of a dog-whistle to provoke lying to yourself, but there are some interesting features that might be different.
Also interesting to see the effect of time, explanations ... if that dampens the effect, then there's hope. But experience suggests otherwise (to the point where you have to suggest knavity rather than naivity).
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
I definitely get that the study shows the left are just as flawed as the right, but people strongly aligned to the left might need something a little more obvious to see that for themselves. After all, if the article is correct then it logically follows that politically aligned people might find it harder to interpret real statistical results of studies using hypothetical examples.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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Olaf
Shipmate
# 11804
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Posted
I think it is far more simple--that people in politics are in general 'liberal arts' people, and not 'sciences/maths' people. In my non-scientific observations, it seems that people tend to lean either one way or another. (ETA: In modern terms, math tends to be grouped more with science than with the liberal arts, even though it certainly has a classical liberal arts history.)
[ 08. September 2013, 21:41: Message edited by: Olaf ]
Posts: 8953 | From: Ad Midwestem | Registered: Sep 2006
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
When Charles Peirce enumerated the normative sciences, he concluded that logic has ethics for its foundation, and ethics is built upon esthetics (his preferred spelling of the word) - because you behave according to what you love, and for him, esthetics is the normative science of the admirable.
Both Peirce's insight and this study seem to suggest that it's not just mathematical education we need, but perhaps an ethical stance: if you're faced with data like this, question your own prejudices and assumptions enough to check your math.
That speaks to Peirce's doctrine of fallibility: that we're more likely to arrive at truth if we admit we might be wrong than if we don't.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
After all, if the article is correct then it
[is correct]
Good point
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
I definitely get that the study shows the left are just as flawed as the right, but people strongly aligned to the left might need something a little more obvious to see that for themselves. After all, if the article is correct then it logically follows that politically aligned people might find it harder to interpret real statistical results of studies using hypothetical examples.
Two obvious objections to your suggestion spring to mind, GC:
- I don't see any reason why a law on gun control would be considered more of a right-wing issue than a left-wing issue
- The whole point of the study is to show that committed ideologues can't interpret studies rationally; this suggests it would be futile to try to bring them around with another study.
It's like the old joke - if there's one thing history teaches us, it's that we never learn from history.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
I don't know where the hub of the solar system is (at least the one that has internet access), but in the US, gun control is very definitely a left vs. right issue.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I don't know where the hub of the solar system is (at least the one that has internet access), but in the US, gun control is very definitely a left vs. right issue.
I understood Dave W. to be wondering why gun control should be more of an issue for the right than the left - nobody was denying that most pro-gun control types are found to the left of most pro-gun liberty types.
My opinion (but I have no hard facts to back this up) is that if you polled registered Republican and Democratic voters, and asked them to list their highest priority issues, you'd find guns higher up the Republican list than the Democratic one (and obviously with the opposite sign!)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
You can get the paper from this page. Surprisingly, the authors don't discuss their specific choice of a gun ban as the test issue except indirectly when they say
quote:
Whereas the issue in the skin-treatment versions of the covariance-detection problem—does a new skin cream improve or aggravate a commonplace and nonserious medical condition—is devoid of partisan significance, the question whether a gun ban increases or instead decreases crime is a high profile political one that provokes intense debate.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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