Study: What Kind of Voter Is Most Susceptible When Pols Pile It High and Deep?

[Kinser79]

(05-20-2016, 09:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Thank you Odin -- and a Bronx cheer to Kinser.

You know PBR, Jesus may love you but I think you're a pompous douche bag. Thanks for the Bronx Cheer though, if you hate something I say it means I'm on the right track.

Quote:I can easily look at this sentence

“Imagination is inside exponential space time events"

I recognize it as being pretentiously vacuous because it sounds exactly like something our good friend Eric would say. In short it looks and smells like bullshit, therefore, it is reasonable to assume it is bullshit.

Quote:Wise people try to keep their language simple. Of course, bona fide scientific communication by necessity uses large words, but only with due precision. Using a word like ecdysiast* to describe Sally Rand might have some excusable humor.

Actually it wouldn't. Generally speaking using a 50 cent word to describe a 5 cent idea is not funny. Never mind the fact that most people would hear the word 'ecdysiast' and wonder "wtf does that mean?".

Quote: The creator of that word (I believe that it was H. L. Mencken) at the least wanted people to look it up in the dictionary.

Then he succeeded. I still don't see the humor though.

Quote:Word salad does not pass editorial review in legitimate journals. Perhaps one can recognize the difference between the well-educated and the ill-educated: the well-educated have read material from some peer-reviewed journal, whatever the subject (whether history or physics) and knows what quality looks like in academic writing. It can be dry, but it makes sense at a certain level. Word salad, in contrast, is not only difficult to read but also empty. Thus on a muddled piece of patent absurdity I would be tempted to take out the red pencil and write "JUNK!" upon it.

The vast majority of people don't read peer reviewed anything. As for word salad it makes me wonder if you actually read your posts before you post them. Half the time when you stray off your half-dozen memorized talking points your writing looks like a conversation about world history with a two year old.

Quote:Peer-reviewed journals have their use, but they are not for everyone. Popular-grade writing, as that one associates with a magazine that can tell one how to make an attractive and useful cabinet, can be useful for making a cabinet. So is a periodical that reduces the material in scientific journals to a popular level of learning -- so that people can be as well-informed of important aspects of science, medicine, and technology as possible. But a cabinet is useful, and having some idea of what happens to something approaching a black hole has some value as entertainment or high-school level learning. (I can make a joke about a dog's mouth as a black hole, at least for food, and people get it, especially if they see the voracious carnivore devouring some meat). Pseudo-scientific drivel is worthless at any level.

I agree and that is why I dismiss everything Eric says out of hand. The first four sentences of this paragraph though is nothing but a word salad, and not a very appetizing one either.

Quote:*Sally Rand was a stripper.

Not quite. Burlesque dancing is much more tasteful than stripping.

(05-20-2016, 09:32 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-20-2016, 08:53 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: A sample size of 196 is not indicative of anything.  The size of the sample is far too small.  They may have only found a couple dozen extremely stupid people.  This needs to be replicated with a much larger sample size.

A sample size of 196 may be adequate for some studies and inadequate for others. 

One works with the material available. One establishes an experimental outline before one asks the questions so that there can be no ambiguity about the validity of recorded data. One does not ask open-ended questions; one has clear "yes" or "no" questions or questions that put responses into neat categories.

Nobody expects random samples to get precise results. One wants instead conclusive results.

How good a sample is depends upon the randomness of the sample and its representative character. A sample of that size to assess whether Pat Leahy (D-VT) has a good chance of being re-elected might be good enough. Vermont is fairly homogeneous, so it is easy to poll. Such a sample size in a not-so-homogeneous state (Texas) could easily be inadequate.

...So how does one test the validity of a statistical study? Do it again! Good science gets replicable results.  Results may not be precisely alike, but if they are close one gets similar results.

...Can you make sense of “Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty.”? I can't. Abstract art can be beautiful (really, it can!)., and the beauty of some abstract art has little to do with "meaning", especially "hidden meaning".  Art needs no "meaning" to make it attractive. When I see the word transform I expect the transforming entity to somehow change the object transformed... and if I see that sentence I am compelled to ask the question, "So into what does the hidden meaning transform "abstract beauty?", or more crudely, "into what?"

The sample size was inadequate to make judgements on a nation wide level, much less one on just party lines. Furthermore this study will need to be repeated to ascertain its validity--which is dubious at best. Like I said a couple dozen incredibly stupid people could throw their figures way off.

And yes I know how the scientific method works thanks.