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Your stat from source [1] shows a big decline from 2008 to 2009. This suggests to me that the calculation of average hours is skewed by those who are part-time

by skh 8y ago

Your stat from source [1] shows a big decline from 2008 to 2009. This suggests to me that the calculation of average hours is skewed by those who are part-time but don't want to be part-time. The source doesn't indicate how the calculation is made. Does the fact that the there are a lot of people who are out of work but don't want to be out of work skew things? I don't know. I haven't studied the issue but apparently professor Jeffrey Pfeffer has. You bring up some seemingly valid points and I'm guessing you haven't extensively studied the issue either. It seems reasonable to me to believe that the professor has accounted for these possible objections since they are so obvious. It also appears to me that you are implicitly assuming your work experience is normative. I say this because of your sentence: This means flexible working hours, ability to work remotely and overall workplace environment. Most people don't have the ability to work remotely or have flexible working hours. I don't have reasons to assume the author is being dishonest. Instead of assuming the author is being dishonest it is a more reasonable conclusion that you don't know enough about the issue. Unless the professor is incompetent then the possible objections you've raised are probably easily debunked. When I encounter a conclusion such as this by an expert and can think of a number of possible objections to the conclusion after a few moments of thought about the issue then I assume I'm the one without the facts.

bko 8y ago
> Most people don't have the ability to work remotely or have flexible working hours. Last year, 43 percent of employed Americans said they spent at least some time working remotely, according to the survey of more than 15,000 adults.[0] Not most but I imagine some have the option but choose not to. I don't know but it seems to me that the professor is bias, as I am, as everyone else is. I don't think "experts" are any more less immune to bias. And the claims he made are demonstrably false, so I'm inclined to believe he's cherry-picking at best and being deliberately dishonest at worst [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/remote-workers-work-from-home.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/remote-workers-work-fr...
- skh 8y ago
  Bias and deliberate dishonesty are entirely different things. One can have a bias and still produce a relatively objective study. The Gallup study referenced in the NYT article you cited says: State of the American Workplace delivers unprecedented analytics and advice on the changing workplace, using data collected from more than 195,600 U.S. employees, more than 31 million respondents, and insight from advising leading Fortune 1000 companies. What it doesn’t say is that this is a random sample of all employees. Indeed one of the stated purposes of the study is enable people to work successfully from locations besides the office I don’t know the percentage of all workers that work in an office but I’m guessing farm laborers, miners, cleaning staff, delivery drivers, retail workers, etc. make up a significant portion of the working population and I gather from Gallup’s writing about its study is that it is focused on big companies with large numbers of office workers. One must also take into account the Murray-Gellmann Amnesia Effect. A NYT article is not on par with a study by an expert. Regardless of all this you miss the point of my original response. You’ve come up with possible objections to a study by an expert. Rather than assume you are the one missing information you assume the expert is being deliberately misleading. A reasonable person would not assume this. A reasonable person would assume that the professor, while possibly wrong, still knows more about the issue and use the opportunity to learn more. The most natural question by you is, “Why does the professor make the conclusion he makes despite these objections?” One answer is bias. Another is because the objections are easily debunked. Which one do you think is more likely?
  - bko 8y ago
    Appeal to Authority: Insisting that a claim is true simply because a valid authority or expert on the issue said it was true, without any other supporting evidence offered. I don't know why there was no followup or mention of these obvious objections I came up with by thinking about it for a few minutes. But it wasn't. I'm not going to take his claims at face value and it appears he is pushing an agenda through hyperbolic language (e.g. "killing us")
    - skh 8y ago
      You are incorrectly stating the Fallacy of the False Appeal to Authority. Citing an expert in their area of expertise is not an argumentative fallacy. I have no views as such on the study in question. I just know that there is a study by an expert and there are bko’s objections to it. Which one is more believable? I think it is much more likely that you are wrong and he is right. I’m guessing you haven’t read the professor’s work. The academic work he published and not an article in a magazine. So you don’t know if your objections have been accounted for in his work. You won’t take an expert’s claims at face value and instead trust your judgments on an issue you have no expertise on? This reminds me of Asimov’s famous quote. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/456687-there-is-a-cult-of-ignorance-in-the-united-states https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/456687-there-is-a-cult-of-i...

by skh 8y ago

bko 8y ago

> Most people don't have the ability to work remotely or have flexible working hours. Last year, 43 percent of employed Americans said they spent at least some time working remotely, according to the survey of more than 15,000 adults.[0] Not most but I imagine some have the option but choose not to. I don't know but it seems to me that the professor is bias, as I am, as everyone else is. I don't think "experts" are any more less immune to bias. And the claims he made are demonstrably false, so I'm inclined to believe he's cherry-picking at best and being deliberately dishonest at worst [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/remote-workers-work-from-home.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/remote-workers-work-fr...

skh 8y ago
Bias and deliberate dishonesty are entirely different things. One can have a bias and still produce a relatively objective study. The Gallup study referenced in the NYT article you cited says: State of the American Workplace delivers unprecedented analytics and advice on the changing workplace, using data collected from more than 195,600 U.S. employees, more than 31 million respondents, and insight from advising leading Fortune 1000 companies. What it doesn’t say is that this is a random sample of all employees. Indeed one of the stated purposes of the study is enable people to work successfully from locations besides the office I don’t know the percentage of all workers that work in an office but I’m guessing farm laborers, miners, cleaning staff, delivery drivers, retail workers, etc. make up a significant portion of the working population and I gather from Gallup’s writing about its study is that it is focused on big companies with large numbers of office workers. One must also take into account the Murray-Gellmann Amnesia Effect. A NYT article is not on par with a study by an expert. Regardless of all this you miss the point of my original response. You’ve come up with possible objections to a study by an expert. Rather than assume you are the one missing information you assume the expert is being deliberately misleading. A reasonable person would not assume this. A reasonable person would assume that the professor, while possibly wrong, still knows more about the issue and use the opportunity to learn more. The most natural question by you is, “Why does the professor make the conclusion he makes despite these objections?” One answer is bias. Another is because the objections are easily debunked. Which one do you think is more likely?
- bko 8y ago
  Appeal to Authority: Insisting that a claim is true simply because a valid authority or expert on the issue said it was true, without any other supporting evidence offered. I don't know why there was no followup or mention of these obvious objections I came up with by thinking about it for a few minutes. But it wasn't. I'm not going to take his claims at face value and it appears he is pushing an agenda through hyperbolic language (e.g. "killing us")
  - skh 8y ago
    You are incorrectly stating the Fallacy of the False Appeal to Authority. Citing an expert in their area of expertise is not an argumentative fallacy. I have no views as such on the study in question. I just know that there is a study by an expert and there are bko’s objections to it. Which one is more believable? I think it is much more likely that you are wrong and he is right. I’m guessing you haven’t read the professor’s work. The academic work he published and not an article in a magazine. So you don’t know if your objections have been accounted for in his work. You won’t take an expert’s claims at face value and instead trust your judgments on an issue you have no expertise on? This reminds me of Asimov’s famous quote. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/456687-there-is-a-cult-of-ignorance-in-the-united-states https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/456687-there-is-a-cult-of-i...