BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'

Subject: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 26 Nov 12 - 10:24 PM

From - http://wiki.answers.co/Q/What_sociological_factors_affect_voting#

"What sociological factors affect voting?"
First answer--
"Social Class and Income": Very wealthy persons (persons in the top percentile of income) are slightly more likely to vote Republican. The middle class is more evenly divided."

HUH?

Seems to me there is only a minor difference as between 'slightly more' and 'more evenly divided'; in fact, 'more evenly divided' could even be 'slightly more'.

No wonder we're a confused society.

There are a trillion example statements like this...but perhaps I exaggerate a bit.

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Nov 12 - 10:29 PM

This is the point I tried to make about the polls about wheather or not the rich deserved their wealth...

Good luck...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: GUEST,999
Date: 26 Nov 12 - 10:37 PM

Coming from one of the people I most respect here--JotSC--that's a good implication and supposition.

Maybe the polls are just plain wrong, set up so they deliver the stats the people who pay for the polls need to have.

Let me design the questions, and I'll have you saying stuff you never even heard of. Then I'll quote you.

Good one, John.

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 26 Nov 12 - 11:14 PM

Thank you, Bruce...a high compliment coming from you.

Bobert-
"...not the rich deserved their wealth..."

This is how I found that wiki answer. In today's (Monday's) Wall Street Journal letters, a writer averred, in regard to the income gap, that "Behavioral studies generally confirm that a majority of people prefer to be above-average in income at a lower absolute level rather than below average BUT (emphasis mine) with more income to spend and more purchasing power."

While I am in some agreement with that observation, I was looking for some sort of study which could support or deny the assertion.

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 12:48 AM

wiki answers are sometimes worth the paper they're printed on . . .


There are a trillion example statements like this. You said it. And for each such sub-literate utterance, there are others that are clearly devoid of an iota of understanding the rudiments of statistics.

Don't get me started on what they've done to my mother tongue.

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 09:35 AM

I agree that a lot of hot air is produced, in any language. However, the example from the OP seems to me quite clear in its meaning, on two premises: a) only voters of either Republicans or Democrats are being considered, and b) a sufficiently precise definition of "middle class" is agreed on.

"The middle class is even more evenly divided" would be even clearer.

Polls with questions like "Do the rich deserve their wealth?" are much more questionable. All statistics have in common that they may be faked - a problem of neither language nor logic.

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 10:14 AM

...and *I* ask... "Which rich?" Some clearly do, as they both earned it fairly and use it wisely.

Polls are getting trickier, because many are phone polls only and don't include cell phones- thus excluding many younger people who have ONLY a cell phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 10:26 AM

Grishka--"However, the example from the OP seems to me quite clear in its meaning, on two premises: a) only voters of either Republicans or Democrats are being considered..."

Since neither of us knows the methodology used, I would have to disagree with this part of your post. It is entirely possible that the survey sampled the "top percentile" to determine voting preference (which turned out to favor Republicans--slightly).

You are correct that there is no definition of 'middle class' as to percentile range, and that would be interesting to know. But whatever the criteria are, the middle class' voting preference is 'more evenly divided' [between or among the parties].

Also, since the answer does not indicate that the polling specifically targeted voters who were registered Rs or Ds, perhaps some of both economic groups planned to vote for an altogether different party.

However, while all that is an interesting aside, it is not the premise of my post which is the obfuscation of what appears to be (according to this answer) that there is not not much of a difference, if any, between very rich and middle class.

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: GUEST,999
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 10:29 AM

"I was looking for some sort of study which could support or deny the assertion."

This wasn't a study, per se, but it may help our understanding of the human psyche.

Years ago when I was in university I took an anthropology course. The professor was a great guy, great sense of humour. Some friends of his were doing a dig at a garbage dump. As they cleared layer after layer (season after season and year after year) of garbage from various areas of the dump they found a disproportionate number of t-bone steak bones in layers from the early 1980s, a time of economic depression in Canada. People were having it tough. Anyway, the various anthropology profs and students on the dig enlisted the thoughts of sociologists and economists at the U of Alberta (and I think elsewhere) to come up with answers as to why an expensive cut of meat like that was being barbequed so frequently when cash was tight. Why not more chicken bones because chicken was inexpensive? Why not more cans of beans in the layers? The picture didn't add up--sorry to mix the metaphor.

What they came up with makes sense. People were 'putting on the Ritz' to save face in front of their neighbours. I expect some of that type thinking may be at play. Just a guess, but maybe a good one.

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 10:40 AM

Most of the rich have similar reasons to vote GOP as they also do to eat sweetened applesauce. With the added sugar one can easily take a cranberry mixed with a cashew and make a palatable spread although using a mass of cinnamon will not covert it to apple butter such as Lincoln enjoyed in Kentucky.

Is this the answer you had in mind?



Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 11:35 AM

"... why an expensive cut of meat like that was being barbequed so frequently when cash was tight"

Or maybe they just hit a pocket of bones from one decent restaurant...

and why just T-bone? Speculation is fun... but...

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: GUEST,999
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 11:43 AM

It wasn't restaurant stuff and as I implied, it was speculation.

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 11:57 AM

"Ooh! OOH!" she says, putting her hand up high, Hermoine Granger style!
"I have an answer!"

The other day I was in the chemist and asked them if they had any emery boards, for filing fingernails. I'd looked everywhere, to no avail..

"Yes, I think we have.." said the young assistant, taking me to a revolving stand by the door, which was filled with hairbrushes....

She looked, couldn't find any and then stepped back from the stand and said...

"Oh yes, I remember now. We did *used* to keep them, but they kept getting stolen, so we no longer keep them. We've got a nail *file*, here, we've got lots of those as nobody wants them, so we keep them in stock."

"Huh!?!"

I tried not to let my mouth fall open..and said "So, let me get this straight, you keep the things that don't get stolen, which nobody actually wants in the first place, but you don't keep the things that people *want* because they get stolen?"

"Yes!" she said, smiling, broadly...

"How about moving the stand away from the door, up to the counter? That way you could keep the things that everyone *wants* and they wouldn't get stolen..and, you wouldn't have to fill your stand with things that nobody wants..."

You could see the "Huh?!" bubble forming above her head.....

:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Answers that make you go 'huh?'
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 27 Nov 12 - 02:39 PM

John,

However, while all that is an interesting aside, it is not the premise of my post which is the obfuscation of what appears to be (according to this answer) that there is not not much of a difference, if any, between very rich and middle class.

That is what I understood as well: the difference is statistically relevant, but slight. I do not see any obfuscation here; it may lie in the context though.

Willful obfuscation of correct facts is quite a common pest. Misrepresenting the facts is another one. Fuzzy fact-finding, such as "Do you think the rich deserve their wealth?" is another one. Lack of intrinsic logic (which I mistook as your accusation) is another one. Lack of wisdom yet another one (as in Lizzie's example). Getting one's language wrong is quite a different subject.

Many reasons to go "huh?". Journalists, teachers, judges, and Mudcatters should be able to expose and neutralize all such pests, since they have a mandate for the common good. Too often they do not live up to their responsibility ...