Politics and math don't mix

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(08-27-2015, 04:57 PM)jakefromstatefarm Wrote: The study, by Yale law professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues, has an ingenious design. At the outset, 1,111 study participants were asked about their political views and also asked a series of questions designed to gauge their “numeracy,” that is, their mathematical reasoning ability. Participants were then asked to solve a fairly difficult problem that involved interpreting the results of a (fake) scientific study. But here was the trick: While the fake study data that they were supposed to assess remained the same, sometimes the study was described as measuring the effectiveness of a “new cream for treating skin rashes.” But in other cases, the study was described as involving the effectiveness of “a law banning private citizens from carrying concealed handguns in public.”

The result? Survey respondents performed wildly differently on what was in essence the same basic problem, simply depending upon whether they had been told that it involved guns or whether they had been told that it involved a new skin cream. What’s more, it turns out that highly numerate liberals and conservatives were even more — not less — susceptible to letting politics skew their reasoning than were those with less mathematical ability.

http://grist.org/politics/science-confirms-politics-wrecks-your-ability-to-do-math/

Not sure this proves what you or others may think - not sure what the thread title means.

It seems to me what the study shows is that people who didn't understand math didn't understand math period, in any context. People who understood math understood it in any context. But, the more they understood it the more likely they were to consider the context and reason accordingly.

Example: I tell you that you have a 10 percent chance of buying a million dollar prize ticket from the remaining tickets (because the winning numbers have been drawn and we are cheating and selling the winning ticket post drawing and we know it is one of the remaining 10 - shh!). I suspect even if only allowed to buy one and with only a 10 percent chance that you would pony up a dollar since these odds are far better than the normal lottery odds.

Now I tell you there is another lottery and another one million dollar winning ticket and it is stapled to a utility pole right across the road. However, this is a road that has been studied extensively and we know statistically that any time of the day or night you have a 10 percent chance of surviving if you cross on foot and return to the lottery prize office which is conveniently located right across from the pole. Your only chance to claim the ticket is to walk across the road and return with it as time is running out (I found the ticket blowing around the parking lot and I couldn't cash it because I work for the lottery - but being a thrill seeker I dashed across the road and nailed it to the pole). The number was drawn one year ago and in five minutes the ticket expires. Your only chance is to go get it now and you are the only one who knows it is there. Same 10 percent chance to be a millionaire - do you take it just as quickly? Perhaps...

But just as in the first case, you have a 10 percent chance of winning a million dollars in the second case. But, given the context, you might evaluate that 10 percent chance differently. In scenario one you have a 10 percent chance to win and a 90 percent chance to lose. Same in scenario two, but losing will also mean losing your life. The numbers are the same and the "problem" is the same mathematically and the odds are the same, yet the context makes a 10 percent chance look great in one light and not so great in another.