4 ms·
There are four groups of people: A - "Philadelphia is the capital, and others will agree." B - "Philadelphia is the capital, but most others won't know that".
by cecilpl2 7y ago
There are four groups of people:
A - "Philadelphia is the capital, and others will agree."
B - "Philadelphia is the capital, but most others won't know that".
C - "Harrisburg is the capital, and others will agree."
D - "Harrisburg is the capital, but most others won't know that."
This technique eliminates groups A and C from consideration, and measures the difference in size between groups B and D.
Both groups B and D think they know something other people don't, but B is wrong and D is right.
In cases where people feel like they have "inside" knowledge, generally speaking it's because they are correct and knowledgeable (group D), not because they are misled (group B).
You often arrive in group D by virtue of having been in group A and then learning the actual truth of the matter.
You can arrive in group B by falling prey to a conspiracy theory, which makes this technique perhaps invalid in such cases? I wouldn't be surprised if the question "Do vaccines cause autism?" had a surprisingly popular answer of "Yes".
- news_hacker 7y agoThis is a great summary / reduction of the article. I appreciated how you broke it down into groups and made the example more concrete.
- lonelappde 7y agoIt's not a summary/reduction, it's a a better article with more information.
- cecilpl2 7y agoWow, thank you!! :)
- cecilpl2 7y agoThanks :)
- jonshariat 7y agoYou should consider adding this breakdown to the wikipedia article
- ggggtez 7y ago>conspiracy theories I can't say what such a poll would say, but I feel fairly confident that using any sort of "surprising popularity" measure is no guarantee of Truth, but only an excuse after the fact to explain a result. As you say, for some question the "surprisingly popular" answer could just as easily be dead wrong.
- killjoywashere 7y agoif you don't post this to Wikipedia, may someone else post it on your behalf (i.e. do you accept Wikipedia's license on your words above?)
- cecilpl2 7y agoI posted it. Thanks :)
- kmonsen 7y agoReally great explanation. This is more a way of finding an opinionated (smug?) minority who believe they know better than the crowd. Sometimes experts could be right, but other times wrong. Vaccines/climate change/current politics could all have a strong effect here and still be wrong.