I do not fancy I know what I do not know*
Prof. Somin of the VC links to the handy poll results below.
He is surprised by how little people know about the issues based on the percentage of people who claim they need more information. Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Given the modern news-cycle, it's really hard to have informed knowledge about a lot of things other than Britney's sister getting pregnant. I think the more revealing numbers are the LOW percentages for certain key issues: abortion, gay marriage, faith and values, and the war in Iraq. The opinions are essentially formed on these issues and there is no budging. The voters in Iowa will in all likelihood vote based on these issues that they are firmly wedded to and not really sweat about Sen. Dodd having a better proposal about the nation's long-term debt.
* Socrates said this after he basically harassed all the other professions and realized that they pretend they know everything but in reality they know nothing. I make no comment whether law professors fall under this category.
He is surprised by how little people know about the issues based on the percentage of people who claim they need more information. Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Given the modern news-cycle, it's really hard to have informed knowledge about a lot of things other than Britney's sister getting pregnant. I think the more revealing numbers are the LOW percentages for certain key issues: abortion, gay marriage, faith and values, and the war in Iraq. The opinions are essentially formed on these issues and there is no budging. The voters in Iowa will in all likelihood vote based on these issues that they are firmly wedded to and not really sweat about Sen. Dodd having a better proposal about the nation's long-term debt.
* Socrates said this after he basically harassed all the other professions and realized that they pretend they know everything but in reality they know nothing. I make no comment whether law professors fall under this category.
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 10:25 AM
6 Comments:
He is surprised by how little people know? I'm shocked by how much people THINK they know. I would have said I needed more information on every single one of those issues.
If I interpret the poll right, it didn't ask if you need more info about whether this is a key issue, but just whether you need more info about the issue. If that's right, I feel like it should be 100% for all of them. Does anybody out there really know all they need to know about Iraq? I mean, aside from the President, obviously.
That was the gist of what I was trying to say. I just didn't get the criticism.
I find it interesting that Democrats care more about the nation's long-term debt than Republicans. In what crazy world did the Democrats become the (relative) fiscal conservatives?
The sample size is way too small for this to be taken as entirely representative. With only 500 people on both sides, I don't find this to be that all that persuasive, especially without a margin of error included.
A margin of error is just a simpler way of describing the standard error, which I'm sure can easily be found upon further research. And a 1000 person poll for Iowa is not "way too small." It's not even small.
12/22/2007 1:07 AM fancies he knows what he doesn't know about statistics.
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