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How to Mislead with Facts

consilienceproject.org

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Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#211

Post by _0ffh »

clairity wrote: post #92
Ma8ee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the jobs are less valuable, not due to who's doing them but due to the market (i.e. all of us) seeing them as less valuable. It is a rather sad and naive view of the value of work if you think that it is decided by market value. My work as a developer has a high market value because what I do is generating revenue for my employer. The work of the teacher who shapes the future of our children or the work of…

(good) teachers generate great value and positive externalities into the future, but are simply unable to capture that value generation because of the time factor. many teachers accept pride and esteem in lieu of economic gain, but they should get paid accordingly as well if we had a fair politicoeconomic system. economics in general has no answer for this differential temporal factor in value creation vs value captu…

When parents can freely choose who schools their children, the ones that place a premium on how well they are schooled are free to invest relatively more than those who do not. This gap between value creation and value capture can be bridged by foresight.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#212

Post by inglor_cz »

croon wrote: post #164
inglor_cz wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like presumption of innocence in criminal court, but being biased isn't a guilt (and certainly shouldn't carry any penalty), it is, at least in my view, similar to being a left-handed or a right-handed person.

I wasn't focusing on guilt. I pointed out the logical fallacy in you stating the burden of proof was on the fact checker.

You consider "being unbiased" as a default in a world where most people are biased.

This is not the same as "not beating your wife". Vast majority of people are indeed innocent of such crimes, so there is no problem treating them as innocent by default.

I would personally be happy if the medium didn't try to prove its absence of bias, which would indeed be hard, but at least tried to prove that it gives platform to sufficiently different views.

Note that we speak about "real world" proofs (preponderance of evidence etc.), not pure abstract mathematical logic which cannot be applied fully in real, messy human society.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#214

Post by _0ffh »

prometheus76 wrote: post #80
throwawayarnty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example: people who simply state “women make 82 cents for every dollar a man makes” to imply the advantage of being a man vs a woman. The reality of how this number is calculated (eg averages across professions, even though men and women tend to work different professions, part time vs full time is not taken into account) suggests the conclusions that come from this 82 cents number is more nuanced than the initia…

Overtime is also not taken into account in those calculations. Men tend to work more overtime than women.

Men in general value money and status more highly and therefore sacrifice more in their pursuit. An observer who concentrates solely on the monetary outcome sees only half of the picture.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#215

Post by _0ffh »

specialist wrote: post #62

Tinkerbell School of Progress. Clap louder and surely Tinkerbell will fly. Like the evergreen advice to teach critical thinking. Certain to work. Next time. There's no profit in pursuing "truth" in the face of tenacious anti-truth. Truthiness is an outgrowth of identity. And identity is impervious to logic, reason, facts. The best we can do is help ourselves navigate the chaos. It's a real simple checklist: - Share y…

It depends on what you encourage people to identify as. I predict better results from someone who identifies primarily as a "human truth-seeker" than from a "$immutable_characteristic $ideology world-improver".

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#216

Post by Ambolia »

Most of the times "fact" wars or "culture" wars are just covert interest wars. Just ask yourself who benefits and how, pull from the string, and most "facts" will just dissolve on a carefully crafted narrative that has nothing to do with the truth and a lot to do with gaining or not losing some type of power.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#217

Post by Cthulhu_ »

zekica wrote: post #16
oreally wrote: post #6

"There are no facts, only interpretations." - Nietzsche

Scientific method tries to get as close as possible to facts. The issue is that popular press and "influencers" ignore limitations in studies and always tell just their interpretations while pointing to "the science".

Tries to, but it too is flawed; misinterpretation of numbers, falsifying of numbers, publishing papers as a means to inflate one's own ego / CV, not publishing studies that don't look positive, and of course, companies and industries funding studies into the positive parts of their 'thing', see for example the campaign against 'fat' in the eighties (funded by the grain and sugar industries), being replaced with the campaign against sugar and carbs in the past two or so decades.

I'm sure all of those studies had merit, had adequate numbers, were peer reviewed and everything... but they were still made with an Agenda, and worse, picked up by the mainstream media so that they could push lifestyle advice, diets, and promote one category of products over another.

The "Truth" is in the middle, of course, and to make a completely opinion based and unscientific statement, too much of anything / overconsumption is a bad thing, but that's too vague a statement or advice; people like being told "avoid doing / eating this" and "do / eat that instead", sticking to simple rules as a lifestyle choice.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#218

Post by Cthulhu_ »

rob_c wrote: post #213

"If you want to lie with facts, use statistics." - anonymous

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statist...

100% of commenters to your comment at the time of writing this comment linked to wikipedia, STATISTICALLY PROVING that they are shills of Big Wiki.

Re: How to Mislead with Facts

#220

Post by h0nd »

I have established a way of dealing with and taking from 'facts' by following these steps:

1. What is said? Do I understand it? Where does it come from?

2. How is it to be understood? How to interpret it?

3. What does it signify? Can it be classified and/or compared with other known things?

4. What can be taken from it? What implications does it have?

Looking at news in this way, it is clearly visible, how most things that are communicated answer 3. and 4., omitting its foundations 1. and 2. Sometimes the bias is created by changing 2.

(The fine-definition of the steps is still in the works. So far, I am very happy with this method. It helps me a lot to understand things and what things are really about. Suggestions?)

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