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Let's look at another toy example, using made-up numbers: Q: Is the earth flat? Yes: 10% No: 90% Q: What do you think most people will respond to th
by cygx 7y ago
Let's look at another toy example, using made-up numbers:
Q: Is the earth flat?
Yes: 10%
No: 90%
Q: What do you think most people will respond to that question?
Yes: 3%
No: 97%
Analysis:
Yes: 10% - 3% = 7%
No: 90% - 97% = -7%
Conclusion:
The earth is flat, I guess ;)
- bscphil 7y agoI would argue that the test is non-informative for controversial questions of any kind. These are cases where * each side believes that those who disagree are wrong, not just mistaken in their remembrance of a fact. * each side is well-informed about which view is more popular The fact that everyone is willing to stick to their answer despite everyone knowing what "most people" think means that an answer's being surprisingly popular doesn't bear either way on its being right. The test is ideal for simple questions of fact which are not disputed.
- Fnoord 7y agoQ: Is the earth flat? -> "Not controversial enough..." (nowadays, in 2019) ie. it does not fit the "surprisingly popular" definition because it isn't popular. There's just a few loudmouths who make it seem like that (combined with a bunch of jokers who joke about it). Hence you don't get many people who will argue most people will respond Yes. You could regard that as a flaw, I see it as a feature.
- fireattack 7y agoGood example. Guess this technique may also detect facts that are involved in common conspiracy.
- bena 7y agoThis also shows my problem with the way the concept is presented. The correct answer to the second question is "No". That is what most people would say. So technically, if we saw Yes:0, No:100, that would just mean everyone knows what they popular choice is. What they want to ask is "How many people would say the answer is "No"?" Then if the answers are far afield, we can say whether or not an answer is surprisingly popular. So in the article and with your example, the second question isn't actually a reflection of the proportions of the first. They're kind of disconnected.
- eterm 7y agoI think this a fair criticism which you haven't well explained, that a minority expert might be minority misled.
- cygx 7y agoThat was left as an exercise for the reader :p As you said, knowingly going against the consensus does not an expert make.
- guptaneil 7y agoYou could argue that “yes” is indeed a surprisingly popular answer to a question that should have 0 yes’s. However, the 7% margin probably isn’t considered significant enough to draw a conclusion on the real answer.
- defertoreptar 7y agoGiven how 10% of people responded "yes" and so few thought people would respond "yes," I would agree that "yes" is in fact surprisingly popular.
- ggggtez 7y agoThe article suggests "surpisingly popular"==correct answers from experts. It could just as easily be crazy answers from crazy people.
- defertoreptar 7y agoWe cannot evaluate that claim based on hypothetical figures. 10% claiming the Earth was flat would be a very biased sample in the real world. It would more likely be 98% and 99%, resulting in only 1% surprisingly popular.
- identity0 7y agoA more realistic example of that would be: Q. Is the earth flat? Yes: 0.1% No: 99.9% Q: What do you think most people will respond to that question? Yes: 10% No: 90% Analysis: Yes: 0.1% - 10% = -9.9% No: 99.9% - 90% = 9.9% Conclusion: the earth is not flat. Not sure where you're getting the "10% believe the earth is flat" from, but if that's just your guess then it's pretty reasonable for people to say they think 10% of people will respond yes to the question.
- cygx 7y agoIf there are only 0.1% of flat earthers, why would 10% of people think it to be the most popular answer? That does not seem realistic at all. Or did you interpret the question as suggested by bena in his sibling answer, ie as an estimate for the answer distribution (that would then have to be averaged) instead of a choice of the most popular answer (as was done in the wiki article)?
- Grue3 7y ago>That does not seem realistic at all. That does seem realistic considering how often the topic pf flat-earthers comes up in discussions on social media, despite it being an extremely niche view.
- cygx 7y agoOP suggested that 10% of people think there are more than 50% of flat-earthers when the real number is 0.1%. Phrased another way, 10% of people expect half the people they meet will be flat-earthers when it's 1 in 1000. Doesn't seem realistic to me.
- Iv 7y agoWorks with creationism then. But, interestingly, there may be a symmetry between people who overestimate the amount of creationists and creationists who underestimate their numbers. So maybe that technique is actually valid. It spots an asymmetry in people who think the majority is wrong on something.
- JohnBooty 7y agoYes, it's definitely vulnerable to situations where a large number of people have been "seeded" with the specific belief that they are part of a minority that holds the correct answer. Still, the article says this: Because of the relatively high margin of 10%, there can be high confidence that the [surprisingly popular answer is correct] I would maintain this holds true, even though we can name some easy counterexamples like flat-earthism. One, I'm sure that nowhere near 10% of an educated population believes in flat-earthism. Two, I think this technique is certain to yield the correct answer quite a bit more often than it will yield an incorrect one. Since it claims to achieve "high confidence" and not "absolute confidence" I think it would still be a pretty valuable metric in many instances.