Politics and math don't mix

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(08-27-2015, 05:29 PM)jakefromstatefarm Wrote: That's not accurate:

More specifically, the study finds that people who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.

Most strikingly, highly numerate liberal Democrats did almost perfectly when the right answer was that the concealed weapons ban does indeed work to decrease crime (version C of the experiment) — an outcome that favors their pro-gun-control predilections. But they did much worse when the correct answer was that crime increases in cities that enact the ban (version D of the experiment).

The opposite was true for highly numerate conservative Republicans: They did just great when the right answer was that the ban didn’t work (version D), but poorly when the right answer was that it did (version C).

So people have biases. This is not a great revelation to me. And an examiner can use obfuscation (including introducing information that taps into biases) to impact the examinees ability to answer correctly. Again, not a huge revelation. Teachers throw red herrings and obfuscating information into problems all the time.

I guess I don't know why someone would do this study, or who would publish it, or why it would make anyone say "wow." Seems kind of common sense, and as I noted above, not necessarily abominable. Most people have an ethos and it shapes their processing of information. It just isn't a big "aha" for me and I think you can argue it is a good thing. If your biases (political or otherwise) have any basis in fact then this may mitigate getting the "wrong" answer to a problem you find secondary to a larger problem. So, for example, while there is ample evidence that some government programs work you have GOP people in large numbers condemning all government programs. They don't care if 100% of them work, they don't believe in government. I think that is kind of ignorant, but respect their right to yield to a "higher" problem - government is always bad, rather than the facts that many (even up to 100%) of programs work because they see the efficacy of government programs as irrelevant - a question that doesn't matter.