andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2013 andrew_gelman_stats-2013-2141 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
Source: html
Introduction: Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m always on the lookout for new items for the lexicon . It’s been a good month on that front. In addition to the Garden of Forking Paths, I’ve encountered two entirely new (to me) fallacies. The first of the two new fallacies has a name that’s quite a mouthful; I’ll hold off on telling you about it right now, as Eric Loken and I are currently finishing a paper on it. Once the paper’s done, I’ll post it in the usual place (or here , once it is scheduled to be published) and I’ll add it to the lexicon as well. What I want to talk about today is a fallacy I noticed a couple days ago. I can’t think of a good name for it. And that’s where you, the readers, come in. Please give this fallacy a name! Here’s the story. The other day on the sister blog I reported on a pair of studies involving children and political orientation: Andrew Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee found that, in Great Britain, parents of girls were more likely
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1 Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m always on the lookout for new items for the lexicon . [sent-1, score-0.232]
2 The first of the two new fallacies has a name that’s quite a mouthful; I’ll hold off on telling you about it right now, as Eric Loken and I are currently finishing a paper on it. [sent-4, score-0.177]
3 What I want to talk about today is a fallacy I noticed a couple days ago. [sent-6, score-0.229]
4 The other day on the sister blog I reported on a pair of studies involving children and political orientation: Andrew Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee found that, in Great Britain, parents of girls were more likely to support left-wing parties, compared to parents of boys. [sent-11, score-1.15]
5 And, in the other direction, Dalton Conley and Emily Rauscher found with survey data from the United States that parents of girls were more likely to support the Republican party, compared to parents of boys. [sent-12, score-1.086]
6 Both these studies came out a few years ago (and I blogged on them way back when ), but the Conley and Rauscher paper got a new burst of attention following its recent publication in a sociology journal. [sent-13, score-0.138]
7 We haven’t reached the fallacy yet, but we’re getting closer. [sent-14, score-0.229]
8 ” “Parents With Daughters Are More Likely To Be Republicans, Says New Study” “Parents Of Daughters Lean Republican, Study Shows” “The Daughter Theory: Does raising girls make parents conservative? [sent-17, score-0.702]
9 Why not “Does having sons make you support the Democrats? [sent-21, score-0.32]
10 ” It looks to me like having sons is considered the default. [sent-22, score-0.197]
11 Really, though, you can have a boy or a girl, and I think the whole discussion of these claims in the media is a bit distorted by the implicit attitude that the boy is a default. [sent-24, score-0.379]
12 Lots of discussion of how having a girl might affect your attitudes on abortion, not so much discussion about how having a boy might affect your attitudes on issues such as gun control or war, which disproportionately affect young men. [sent-27, score-0.793]
13 This is a real problem, when issues of girls and boys, men and women, are treated asymmetrically. [sent-28, score-0.257]
14 An illustrative example of this asymmetry came from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who recently expressed pleasure about the headline, “Study: Having daughters makes parents more likely to be Republican. [sent-29, score-0.988]
15 Well, because previous research on this question had suggested the reverse, with parents of daughters leaning left and parents of sons rightward. [sent-31, score-1.344]
16 And those earlier findings dovetailed neatly with liberal talking points about politics and gender: Republicans make war on women, Democrats protect them, so it’s only natural that raising girls would make parents see the wisdom of liberalism … But the new study undercuts those talking points. [sent-32, score-1.081]
17 You can love your daughters, want the best for them, and find yourself drawn to … conservative ideas! [sent-34, score-0.152]
18 The fallacy here is that Douthat is thinking unidirectionally. [sent-36, score-0.229]
19 This fallacy is not special to Ross Douthat or to conservative columnists. [sent-42, score-0.314]
20 It could be just as well be framed as a male gender gap in favor of the Republican party, but you don’t usually hear it that way. [sent-44, score-0.258]
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same-blog 1 1.0 2141 andrew gelman stats-2013-12-20-Don’t douthat, man! Please give this fallacy a name.
Introduction: Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m always on the lookout for new items for the lexicon . It’s been a good month on that front. In addition to the Garden of Forking Paths, I’ve encountered two entirely new (to me) fallacies. The first of the two new fallacies has a name that’s quite a mouthful; I’ll hold off on telling you about it right now, as Eric Loken and I are currently finishing a paper on it. Once the paper’s done, I’ll post it in the usual place (or here , once it is scheduled to be published) and I’ll add it to the lexicon as well. What I want to talk about today is a fallacy I noticed a couple days ago. I can’t think of a good name for it. And that’s where you, the readers, come in. Please give this fallacy a name! Here’s the story. The other day on the sister blog I reported on a pair of studies involving children and political orientation: Andrew Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee found that, in Great Britain, parents of girls were more likely
Introduction: We recently considered a pair of studies that came out awhile ago involving children and political orientation: Andrew Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee found that, in Great Britain, parents of girls were more likely to support left-wing parties, compared to parents of boys. And, in the other direction, Dalton Conley and Emily Rauscher found with survey data from the United States that parents of girls were more likely to support the Republican party, compared to parents of boys. As I discussed the other day, the latest version of the Conley and Raucher study came with some incoherent evolutionary theorizing. There was also some discussion regarding the differences between the two studies. Oswald sent me some relevant comments: It will be hard in cross-sections like the GSS to solve the problem of endogeneity bias. Conservative families may want to have boys, and may use that as a stopping rule. If so, they will end up with disproportionately large number of girls. Without l
3 0.32243773 2196 andrew gelman stats-2014-02-03-One-way street fallacy again! in reporting of research on brothers and sisters
Introduction: There’s something satisfying about seeing the same error being made by commentators on the left and the right. In this case, we’re talking about the one-way street fallacy , which is the implicit assumption of unidirectionality in a setting that actually has underlying symmetry. 1. A month or so ago we reported on an op-ed by conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who was discussing recent research exemplified by the headline, “Study: Having daughters makes parents more likely to be Republican.” Douthat wrote all about different effects of having girls, without realizing that the study was comparing parents of girls to parents of boys. He just as well could have talked about the effects of having sons, and how that is associated with voting for Democrats (according to the study). But he did not do so; he was implicitly considering boy children to be the default. 2. A couple days ago, liberal NYT columnist Charles Blow ( link from commenter Steve Sailer) repo
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Introduction: I was flipping through the paper yesterday and noticed something which I think is a bit of innumeracy–although I don’t have all the facts at my disposal so I can’t be sure. It came in an item by Robert Woletz, society editor of the New York Times, in response to the following letter from Max Sarinsky ( click here and scroll down): The heavy majority of couples typically featured in the Sunday wedding announcements either attended elite universities, hold corporate management positions or have parents with corporate management positions. It’s nice to learn about the nuptials of the privileged, but Times readers would benefit from learning about a more representative sampling of weddings in our diverse city. I [Sarinksy] am curious as to how editors select which announcements to publish, and why editors don’t make a sustained effort to include different types of couples. Woletz replied: The Weddings/Celebrations pages are truly open to everyone, and The Times persistentl
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Introduction: I used this convenient site to create some images for a talk I’m preparing. (The competing headlines: “Beautiful parents have more daughters” vs. “No compelling evidence that beautiful parents are more or less likely to have daughters.” The latter gets cut off at “No compelling evidence that,” which actually works pretty well to demonstrate the sort of dull headline that would result if newspapers were to publish null results.)
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Introduction: Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m always on the lookout for new items for the lexicon . It’s been a good month on that front. In addition to the Garden of Forking Paths, I’ve encountered two entirely new (to me) fallacies. The first of the two new fallacies has a name that’s quite a mouthful; I’ll hold off on telling you about it right now, as Eric Loken and I are currently finishing a paper on it. Once the paper’s done, I’ll post it in the usual place (or here , once it is scheduled to be published) and I’ll add it to the lexicon as well. What I want to talk about today is a fallacy I noticed a couple days ago. I can’t think of a good name for it. And that’s where you, the readers, come in. Please give this fallacy a name! Here’s the story. The other day on the sister blog I reported on a pair of studies involving children and political orientation: Andrew Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee found that, in Great Britain, parents of girls were more likely
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Introduction: There’s something satisfying about seeing the same error being made by commentators on the left and the right. In this case, we’re talking about the one-way street fallacy , which is the implicit assumption of unidirectionality in a setting that actually has underlying symmetry. 1. A month or so ago we reported on an op-ed by conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who was discussing recent research exemplified by the headline, “Study: Having daughters makes parents more likely to be Republican.” Douthat wrote all about different effects of having girls, without realizing that the study was comparing parents of girls to parents of boys. He just as well could have talked about the effects of having sons, and how that is associated with voting for Democrats (according to the study). But he did not do so; he was implicitly considering boy children to be the default. 2. A couple days ago, liberal NYT columnist Charles Blow ( link from commenter Steve Sailer) repo
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Introduction: That cute picture is of toddler FDR in a dress, from 1884. Jeanne Maglaty writes : A Ladies’ Home Journal article [or maybe from a different source, according to a commenter] in June 1918 said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” Other sources said blue was flattering for blonds, pink for brunettes; or blue was for blue-eyed babies, pink for brown-eyed babies, according to Paoletti. In 1927, Time magazine printed a chart showing sex-appropriate colors for girls and boys according to leading U.S. stores. In Boston, Filene’s told parents to dress boys in pink. So did Best & Co. in New York City, Halle’s in Cleveland and Marshall Field in Chicago. Today’s color dictate wasn’t established until the 1940s . . . When the women’s liberation movement arrived in the mid-1960s, w
Introduction: We recently considered a pair of studies that came out awhile ago involving children and political orientation: Andrew Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee found that, in Great Britain, parents of girls were more likely to support left-wing parties, compared to parents of boys. And, in the other direction, Dalton Conley and Emily Rauscher found with survey data from the United States that parents of girls were more likely to support the Republican party, compared to parents of boys. As I discussed the other day, the latest version of the Conley and Raucher study came with some incoherent evolutionary theorizing. There was also some discussion regarding the differences between the two studies. Oswald sent me some relevant comments: It will be hard in cross-sections like the GSS to solve the problem of endogeneity bias. Conservative families may want to have boys, and may use that as a stopping rule. If so, they will end up with disproportionately large number of girls. Without l
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Introduction: I was flipping through the paper yesterday and noticed something which I think is a bit of innumeracy–although I don’t have all the facts at my disposal so I can’t be sure. It came in an item by Robert Woletz, society editor of the New York Times, in response to the following letter from Max Sarinsky ( click here and scroll down): The heavy majority of couples typically featured in the Sunday wedding announcements either attended elite universities, hold corporate management positions or have parents with corporate management positions. It’s nice to learn about the nuptials of the privileged, but Times readers would benefit from learning about a more representative sampling of weddings in our diverse city. I [Sarinksy] am curious as to how editors select which announcements to publish, and why editors don’t make a sustained effort to include different types of couples. Woletz replied: The Weddings/Celebrations pages are truly open to everyone, and The Times persistentl
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Introduction: Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m always on the lookout for new items for the lexicon . It’s been a good month on that front. In addition to the Garden of Forking Paths, I’ve encountered two entirely new (to me) fallacies. The first of the two new fallacies has a name that’s quite a mouthful; I’ll hold off on telling you about it right now, as Eric Loken and I are currently finishing a paper on it. Once the paper’s done, I’ll post it in the usual place (or here , once it is scheduled to be published) and I’ll add it to the lexicon as well. What I want to talk about today is a fallacy I noticed a couple days ago. I can’t think of a good name for it. And that’s where you, the readers, come in. Please give this fallacy a name! Here’s the story. The other day on the sister blog I reported on a pair of studies involving children and political orientation: Andrew Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee found that, in Great Britain, parents of girls were more likely
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