andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2014 andrew_gelman_stats-2014-2196 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
Source: html
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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1 There’s something satisfying about seeing the same error being made by commentators on the left and the right. [sent-1, score-0.144]
2 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. [sent-2, score-0.06]
3 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. [sent-4, score-0.5]
4 ” Douthat wrote all about different effects of having girls, without realizing that the study was comparing parents of girls to parents of boys. [sent-5, score-0.665]
5 But he did not do so; he was implicitly considering boy children to be the default. [sent-7, score-0.063]
6 A couple days ago, liberal NYT columnist Charles Blow ( link from commenter Steve Sailer) reports on a similar study, this one by Andrew Healy and Neil Malhotra, finding that “that men with sisters are more likely to be Republican. [sent-9, score-0.74]
7 A report from Stanford about the study concluded, ‘Watching their sisters do the chores “teaches” boys that housework is simply women’s work, and that leads to a traditional view of gender roles — a position linked to a predilection for Republican politics. [sent-13, score-1.361]
8 I don’t see any logical reason for brothers to be the baseline, I just think this is how people tend to frame the comparison, without thinking about it. [sent-15, score-0.289]
9 For example, one of the sections of the Healy and Malhotra paper is entitled, “The Effect of Sisters on Political Attitudes,” but there is no corresponding section on “The Effect of Brothers. [sent-16, score-0.059]
10 ” And this framing has an effect, especially in the popular reception of the work, for example in the above-linked op-ed by Charles Blow, who talks all about the effect of sisters while just treating brothers as some sort of gray default, of no interest in itself. [sent-17, score-1.152]
11 Also (this comes up in the paper and the discussion in a few places), the difference between significant and not significant is not statistically significant. [sent-18, score-0.138]
12 When I was a kid, one of my sisters rebelled at one point because she said that the girls got all the gross chores like scrubbing the bathroom. [sent-21, score-1.085]
13 Personally, I hated—hated—mowing the lawn and I swore this would be something I’d never do when I grew up. [sent-22, score-0.066]
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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: 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: In our Cliff thread from yesterday, sociologist Philip Cohen pointed to his discussions in the decline in the popularity of the name Mary. One thing that came up was the traditional trendiness of girls’ names. So I thought I’d share my thoughts from a couple of years ago, as reported by David Leonhardt: Andrew Gelman, a statistics professor at Columbia and an amateur name-ologist, argues that many parents want their boys to seem mature and so pick classic names. William, David, Joseph and James, all longtime stalwarts, remain in the Top 20. With girls, Gelman says, parents are attracted to names that convey youth even into adulthood and choose names that seem to be on the upswing. By the 1990s, of course, not many girls from the 1880s were still around, and that era’s names could seem fresh again. This search for youthfulness makes girls’ names more volatile — and increasingly so, as more statistics about names become available and parents grow more willing to experiment
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: 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
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Introduction: Dan Kahan sends in this horror story: A new study finds that atheists are among society’s most distrusted group, comparable even to rapists in certain circumstances. Psychologists at the University of British Columbia and the University of Oregon say that their study demonstrates that anti-atheist prejudice stems from moral distrust, not dislike, of nonbelievers. “It’s pretty remarkable,” said Azim Shariff, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and a co-author of the study, which appears in the current issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study, conducted among 350 Americans adults and 420 Canadian college students, asked participants to decide if a fictional driver damaged a parked car and left the scene, then found a wallet and took the money, was the driver more likely to be a teacher, an atheist teacher, or a rapist teacher? The participants, who were from religious and nonreligious backgrounds, most often chose the athe
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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: Eric Mvukiyehe and Cyrus Samii write : We [Mvukiyehe and Samii] use original survey data and administrative data to test a theory of the micro-level impacts of peacekeeping. The theory proposes that through the creation of local security bubbles and also through direct assistance, peacekeeping deployments contribute to economic and social revitalization that may contribute to more durable peace. This theory guides the design of current United Nations peacekeeping operations, and has been proposed as one of the explanations for peacekeeping’s well-documented association with more durable peace. Our evidence paint a complex picture that deviates substantially from the theory. We do not find evidence for local security bubbles around deployment base areas, and we do not find that deployments were substantial contributors to local social infrastructure. In addition, we find a negative relationship between deployment basing locations and NGO contributions to social infrastructure.
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