andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2012 andrew_gelman_stats-2012-1569 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Barack Obama’s win has a potentially huge effect on policy. The current budget negotiations will affect the level and direction of government spending and on the mix of taxes paid by different groups of Americans. We can guess that a President Romney would have fought hard against upper-income tax increases. Other areas of long-term impact include the government’s stance on global warming, foreign policy, and the likelihood that Obama will nominate new Supreme Court justices who will uphold the right to abortion announced in Roe v. Wade. When it comes to public opinion, the story is different. The Democrats may well benefit in 2014 and 2016 from the anticipated slow but steady recovery of the economy over the next few years—but, as of November 6, 2012, the parties are essentially tied, with Barack Obama receiving 51% of the two-party vote, compared to Mitt Romney’s 49%, a split comparable to Al Gore’s narrow victory in 2000, Richard Nixon’s in 1968, and John Kennedy’s in 1960.
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1 Barack Obama’s win has a potentially huge effect on policy. [sent-1, score-0.081]
2 The current budget negotiations will affect the level and direction of government spending and on the mix of taxes paid by different groups of Americans. [sent-2, score-0.445]
3 We can guess that a President Romney would have fought hard against upper-income tax increases. [sent-3, score-0.075]
4 Other areas of long-term impact include the government’s stance on global warming, foreign policy, and the likelihood that Obama will nominate new Supreme Court justices who will uphold the right to abortion announced in Roe v. [sent-4, score-0.901]
5 Over the next few months, you will be hearing a lot about Obama’s non-mandate, and rightly so. [sent-8, score-0.303]
6 But here I want to talk about a slightly different split of the voting-eligible population: the approximately 30% who voted for Obama, the nearly identical number who chose Romney, and the 40% who did not vote at all or who voted for minor-party candidates. [sent-9, score-1.133]
7 I really do think it would be a good idea for us to talk less about 50/50 America and more about the 30/30/40 split. [sent-15, score-0.095]
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same-blog 1 0.99999994 1569 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-08-30-30-40 Nation
Introduction: Barack Obama’s win has a potentially huge effect on policy. The current budget negotiations will affect the level and direction of government spending and on the mix of taxes paid by different groups of Americans. We can guess that a President Romney would have fought hard against upper-income tax increases. Other areas of long-term impact include the government’s stance on global warming, foreign policy, and the likelihood that Obama will nominate new Supreme Court justices who will uphold the right to abortion announced in Roe v. Wade. When it comes to public opinion, the story is different. The Democrats may well benefit in 2014 and 2016 from the anticipated slow but steady recovery of the economy over the next few years—but, as of November 6, 2012, the parties are essentially tied, with Barack Obama receiving 51% of the two-party vote, compared to Mitt Romney’s 49%, a split comparable to Al Gore’s narrow victory in 2000, Richard Nixon’s in 1968, and John Kennedy’s in 1960.
2 0.26473993 1574 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-12-How to Lie With Statistics example number 12,498,122
Introduction: This post is by Phil Price. Bill Kristol notes that “Four presidents in the last century have won more than 51 percent of the vote twice: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan and Obama”. I’m not sure why Kristol, a conservative, is promoting the idea that Obama has a mandate, but that’s up to him. I’m more interested in the remarkable bit of cherry-picking that led to this “only four presidents” statistic. There was one way in which Obama’s victory was large: he won the electoral college 332-206. That’s a thrashing. But if you want to claim that Obama has a “popular mandate” — which people seem to interpret as an overwhelming preference of The People such that the opposition is morally obligated to give way — you can’t make that argument based on the electoral college, you have to look at the popular vote. That presents you with a challenge for the 2012 election, since Obama’s 2.7-point margin in the popular vote was the 12th-smallest out of the 57 elections we’ve had. There’s a nice sor
3 0.19650784 1075 andrew gelman stats-2011-12-20-This guy has a regular column at Reuters
Introduction: Gregg Easterbrook : Gingrich is a wild card. He probably would end up a flaming wreckage in electoral terms, but there’s a chance he could become seen as the man unafraid to bring sweeping change to an ossified Washington, D.C. There’s perhaps a 90 percent likelihood Obama would wipe the floor with Gingrich, versus a 10 percent likelihood Gingrich would stage an historic upset. This is the dumbest thing I’ve seen since . . . ummm, I dunno, how bout this ? It actually gets worse because Easterbrook then invokes game theory. What next? Catastrophe theory? Intelligent design? P.S. Maybe I should explain for readers without an education in probability theory. Let’s suppose “wipe the floor” means that Obama gets 55%+ of the two-party vote, and let’s suppose that “an historic upset” means that Obama gets less than 50% of the vote. Now try to draw a forecast distribution that has 90% of its probability above 0.55 and 10% of it’s probability below 0.50. It’s a pretty weird-loo
Introduction: I recently wrote about the difficulty people have with probabilities, in this case the probability that Obama wins the election. If the probability is reported as 70%, people think Obama is going to win. Actually, though, it just means that Obama is predicted to get about 50.8% of the two-party vote, with an uncertainty of something like 2 percentage points. So, as I wrote, the election really is too close to call in the sense that the predicted vote margin is less than its uncertainty. But . . . when people see a number such as 70%, they tend to attribute too much certainty to it. Especially when the estimated probability has increased from, say 60%. How to get the point across? Commenter HS had what seems like a good suggestion: Say that Obama will win, but there is 25% chance (or whatever) that this prediction is wrong? Same point, just slightly different framing, but somehow, this seems far less incendiary. I like that. Somehow a stated probability of 75% sounds a
5 0.19481133 2255 andrew gelman stats-2014-03-19-How Americans vote
Introduction: An interview with me from 2012 : You’re a statistician and wrote a book, Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State , looking at why Americans vote the way they do. In an election year I think it would be a good time to revisit that question, not just for people in the US, but anyone around the world who wants to understand the realities – rather than the stereotypes – of how Americans vote. I regret the title I gave my book. I was too greedy. I wanted it to be an airport bestseller because I figured there were millions of people who are interested in politics and some subset of them are always looking at the statistics. It’s got a very grabby title and as a result people underestimated the content. They thought it was a popularisation of my work, or, at best, an expansion of an article we’d written. But it had tons of original material. If I’d given it a more serious, political science-y title, then all sorts of people would have wanted to read it, because they would
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9 0.16920362 1577 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-14-Richer people continue to vote Republican
10 0.13828769 551 andrew gelman stats-2011-02-02-Obama and Reagan, sitting in a tree, etc.
11 0.13754334 369 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-25-Misunderstanding of divided government
12 0.13496557 1396 andrew gelman stats-2012-06-27-Recently in the sister blog
13 0.13321017 286 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-20-Are the Democrats avoiding a national campaign?
15 0.12770173 966 andrew gelman stats-2011-10-20-A qualified but incomplete thanks to Gregg Easterbrook’s editor at Reuters
17 0.12478559 219 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-20-Some things are just really hard to believe: more on choosing your facts.
18 0.1235133 1540 andrew gelman stats-2012-10-18-“Intrade to the 57th power”
19 0.12005665 1564 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-06-Choose your default, or your default will choose you (election forecasting edition)
20 0.11607149 384 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-31-Two stories about the election that I don’t believe
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same-blog 1 0.97570467 1569 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-08-30-30-40 Nation
Introduction: Barack Obama’s win has a potentially huge effect on policy. The current budget negotiations will affect the level and direction of government spending and on the mix of taxes paid by different groups of Americans. We can guess that a President Romney would have fought hard against upper-income tax increases. Other areas of long-term impact include the government’s stance on global warming, foreign policy, and the likelihood that Obama will nominate new Supreme Court justices who will uphold the right to abortion announced in Roe v. Wade. When it comes to public opinion, the story is different. The Democrats may well benefit in 2014 and 2016 from the anticipated slow but steady recovery of the economy over the next few years—but, as of November 6, 2012, the parties are essentially tied, with Barack Obama receiving 51% of the two-party vote, compared to Mitt Romney’s 49%, a split comparable to Al Gore’s narrow victory in 2000, Richard Nixon’s in 1968, and John Kennedy’s in 1960.
2 0.86411124 1574 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-12-How to Lie With Statistics example number 12,498,122
Introduction: This post is by Phil Price. Bill Kristol notes that “Four presidents in the last century have won more than 51 percent of the vote twice: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan and Obama”. I’m not sure why Kristol, a conservative, is promoting the idea that Obama has a mandate, but that’s up to him. I’m more interested in the remarkable bit of cherry-picking that led to this “only four presidents” statistic. There was one way in which Obama’s victory was large: he won the electoral college 332-206. That’s a thrashing. But if you want to claim that Obama has a “popular mandate” — which people seem to interpret as an overwhelming preference of The People such that the opposition is morally obligated to give way — you can’t make that argument based on the electoral college, you have to look at the popular vote. That presents you with a challenge for the 2012 election, since Obama’s 2.7-point margin in the popular vote was the 12th-smallest out of the 57 elections we’ve had. There’s a nice sor
3 0.85223198 551 andrew gelman stats-2011-02-02-Obama and Reagan, sitting in a tree, etc.
Introduction: I saw this picture staring at me from the newsstand the other day: Here’s the accompanying article, by Michael Scherer and Michael Duffy, which echoes some of the points I made a few months ago , following the midterm election: Why didn’t Obama do a better job of leveling with the American people? In his first months in office, why didn’t he anticipate the example of the incoming British government and warn people of economic blood, sweat, and tears? Why did his economic team release overly-optimistic graphs such as shown here? Wouldn’t it have been better to have set low expectations and then exceed them, rather than the reverse? I don’t know, but here’s my theory. When Obama came into office, I imagine one of his major goals was to avoid repeating the experiences of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter in their first two years. Clinton, you may recall, was elected with less then 50% of the vote, was never given the respect of a “mandate” by congressional Republicans, wasted
4 0.81876415 84 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-14-Is it 1930?
Introduction: Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute reports: Goldman Sachs’ latest forecast (and they’ve been pretty accurate so far) is that unemployment will rise to 9.9% by early 2011 and trend down to 9.7% for the last quarter of 2011. Obviously, this is a simply awful scenario but it seems one that is being accepted. That is, we seem to be in the process of accepting the unacceptable. Note that this scenario probably assumes the passage of the limited efforts now being considered in Congress. One might be surprised that Obama and congressional Democrats are not doing more to try to bring unemployment down. On the other hand, just to speak in generalities (not knowing any of the people involved), I would think that Obama would be much much more worried about the economy doing well in 2010 and then crashing in 2012. A crappy economy through 2011 and then improvement in 2012–that would be his ideal, no? Not that he would have the ability to time this sort of thing. But perhap
5 0.80669826 1556 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-01-Recently in the sister blogs: special pre-election edition!
Introduction: 1. I can simultaneously (a) accept that Obama has a 72 percent chance of winning and (b) say the election is too close to call 2. Michael’s a Republican, Susan’s a Democrat 3. The narcissism of the narcissism of small differences 4. Obamanomics: A Counter-counterhistory 5. Not a gaffe 6. Categories influence predictions about individual consistency
6 0.8033396 286 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-20-Are the Democrats avoiding a national campaign?
7 0.80022627 394 andrew gelman stats-2010-11-05-2010: What happened?
8 0.78272843 1075 andrew gelman stats-2011-12-20-This guy has a regular column at Reuters
9 0.75959605 384 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-31-Two stories about the election that I don’t believe
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same-blog 1 0.94532847 1569 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-08-30-30-40 Nation
Introduction: Barack Obama’s win has a potentially huge effect on policy. The current budget negotiations will affect the level and direction of government spending and on the mix of taxes paid by different groups of Americans. We can guess that a President Romney would have fought hard against upper-income tax increases. Other areas of long-term impact include the government’s stance on global warming, foreign policy, and the likelihood that Obama will nominate new Supreme Court justices who will uphold the right to abortion announced in Roe v. Wade. When it comes to public opinion, the story is different. The Democrats may well benefit in 2014 and 2016 from the anticipated slow but steady recovery of the economy over the next few years—but, as of November 6, 2012, the parties are essentially tied, with Barack Obama receiving 51% of the two-party vote, compared to Mitt Romney’s 49%, a split comparable to Al Gore’s narrow victory in 2000, Richard Nixon’s in 1968, and John Kennedy’s in 1960.
2 0.9161309 1397 andrew gelman stats-2012-06-27-Stand Your Ground laws and homicides
Introduction: Jeff points me to a paper by Chandler McClellan and Erdal Tekin which begins as follows: The controversies surrounding Stand Your Ground laws have recently captured the nation’s attention. Since 2005, eighteen states have passed laws extending the right to self-defense with no duty to retreat to any place a person has a legal right to be, and several additional states are debating the adoption of similar legislation. Despite the implications that these laws may have for public safety, there has been little empirical investigation of their impact on crime and victimization. In this paper, we use monthly data from the U.S. Vital Statistics to examine how Stand Your Ground laws affect homicides. We identify the impact of these laws by exploiting variation in the effective date of these laws across states. Our results indicate that Stand Your Ground laws are associated with a significant increase in the number of homicides among whites, especially white males. According to our estimat
3 0.90012509 1210 andrew gelman stats-2012-03-12-Plagiarists are in the habit of lying
Introduction: Amy Hundley writes in the New Yorker about a notorious recent case of unacknowledged literary quilting : I [Hundley] was the editor at Grove/Atlantic to whom Quentin Rowan’s novel “Appearance and the Park” was submitted (“The Plagiarist’s Tale,” by Lizzie Widdicombe, February 13th & 20th). Widdicombe writes that the editor in question thought that “its plot was too close to that of another of the house’s books, ‘My Idea of Fun,’ by Will Self,” and I can only assume that this explanation came from Rowan. In fact, Rowan had lifted a passage nearly verbatim from Will Self’s novella “The Sweet Smell of Psychosis.” It was an especially delicious one, in which Self describes the media denizens of a particular bar. I recognized it immediately and informed his agent that he’d plagiarized it. Writing a plot similar to a successful novelist’s—something that can arise innocently—is very different from plagiarizing. Appropriating and remixing someone else’s work while acknowledging sources is
4 0.88634044 1281 andrew gelman stats-2012-04-25-Dyson’s baffling love of crackpots
Introduction: Peter Woit reports on the sympathy that well-known physicist Freeman Dyson has with crackpot theorists. The interesting part is that Dyson has positive feelings for these cranks, even while believing that their theories are completely wrong : In my [Dyson's] career as a scientist, I twice had the good fortune to be a personal friend of a famous dissident. One dissident, Sir Arthur Eddington, was an insider like Thomson and Tait. The other, Immanuel Velikovsky, was an outsider like Carter. Both of them were tragic figures, intellectually brilliant and morally courageous, with the same fatal flaw as Carter. Both of them were possessed by fantasies that people with ordinary common sense could recognize as nonsense. I made it clear to both that I did not believe their fantasies, but I admired them as human beings and as imaginative artists. I admired them most of all for their stubborn refusal to remain silent. With the whole world against them, they remained true to their beliefs.
5 0.88472795 1123 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-17-Big corporations are more popular than you might realize
Introduction: Robin Hanson writes , “people tend to like cities more than firms . . . people tend to dislike bigger firms more than small ones, cities tend to be bigger than firms, and the biggest cities tend to be the most celebrated.” Hansen goes on to consider explanations (involving “the joy of sometimes dominating,” etc.) but ends up describing himself as confused. One reason he might be confused is that, at least in the data I’ve seen, people don’t dislike big corporations—at least not when the corporation is named. Consider some survey data from 2007: OK, sure, now that there’s a recession on, Citibank probably doesn’t have 78% approval anymore. Still, these companies are pretty damn popular. You might think lots of Americans think Starbucks is stuck-up? Nope. 79% approval. Pfizer? 77%. I have no idea why Target is so much more popular than Walmart, but in any case all these numbers (with the exception of oil-spillin’ Exxon and war-profitin’ Halliburton) are stratosp
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