9 ms·

The article itself is the citation, and provides plenty of evidence and arguments for this.

fortuna86 5y ago
The internet has become a confirmation bias machine (as platforms figured out giving people want they want to hear keep them on platform longer). The result is, people are becoming more confident in false conclusions. https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1493987804442812416 https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1493987804442812416 The promise of the internet is more information will help our accuracy, this doesn't take into account the nature of some to want information that confirms their beliefs, not info that is confirmed accurate.
- native_samples 5y ago
  The poll backing that tweet appears to be exactly the problem you're highlighting though. It's a bunch of academics in which they poll people on questions selected specifically to target a minority of right wing people, which they then use to "prove" that Democrats are better informed. And also that young parents are less informed than older non-parents, which they discover for reasons we'll get to in a moment. But hey, anyone can do that. Here's a poll that shows the opposite - that right wing people are better informed about COVID than left wing people: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimates-covid-hospitalization-risk.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat... Except that's actually a professionally done poll. The "Covid State Project" is an academic consortium (so we can guess that their work won't replicate anyway), and these people REALLY want to believe that left wing academics sit at the top of the informational totem pole. This sort of polling is a waste of time because you can get any result you like, it has confirmation bias all over its design. Want to show that <outgroup> is stupid and dumb? Find the most extreme and stupid beliefs held only by a tiny minority of members of that outgroup and poll everyone on only those questions (an actual question they asked about, "do vaccines contain microchips"). In fact not all of their questions are even correct. They only asked four, and one of them was "is there any impact on fertility" which was rated false. This is itself a lie and I know this, because my fiancés best friend lost her period for nearly six months. No periods = no fertility, so I have seen with my own eyes that this can happen. Not surprisingly, this is the question in which the highest number of people said yes to, yet they rated this belief false and claimed anyone who believes it is "misinformed". This probably explains their otherwise unexplainable finding that young parents are amongst the "wrongest" people. Young parents are exactly the sort of people who are most likely to know lots of women who are caring about periods and fertility, and thus who will be the first to pick up on widespread disruption to menstrual cycles. When they answer correctly that vaccination can affect cycles and thus fertility, they get graded as misinformed. It's garbage-grade research like this which makes academics look so corrupt and terrible. 14 academics worked on this and a poll with four questions, one of which has the wrong answer, is the best they can do.
  - fortuna86 5y ago
    > The "Covid State Project" is an academic consortium (so we can guess that their work won't replicate anyway) I'm not sure what you mean by that (perhaps just a simple case of discrediting the messenger in order to ignore the message), but this fact: > The single biggest predictor, by far, of belief in vaccine misinformation? Identifying as a Republican, reflecting the widespread misinformation and conspiracy theorizing about Covid on the right. Is supported by polling, hospital rates, death rates, etc. Denying it because it makes your 'side' look bad is not only silly, but dangerous. People are dying. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/briefing/covid-red-states-vaccinations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/briefing/covid-red-states... https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/29/covid-19-is-crushing-red-states-why-isnt-trump-turning-his-rallies-into-mass-vaccination-sites/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/29/covid-19-is... https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/580607-the-death-rates-from-covid-in-red-america-and https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...

The internet has become a confirmation bias machine (as platforms figured out giving people want they want to hear keep them on platform longer). The result is, people are becoming more confident in false conclusions. https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1493987804442812416 https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1493987804442812416 The promise of the internet is more information will help our accuracy, this doesn't take into account the nature of some to want information that confirms their beliefs, not info that is confirmed accurate.

native_samples 5y ago
The poll backing that tweet appears to be exactly the problem you're highlighting though. It's a bunch of academics in which they poll people on questions selected specifically to target a minority of right wing people, which they then use to "prove" that Democrats are better informed. And also that young parents are less informed than older non-parents, which they discover for reasons we'll get to in a moment. But hey, anyone can do that. Here's a poll that shows the opposite - that right wing people are better informed about COVID than left wing people: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimates-covid-hospitalization-risk.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat... Except that's actually a professionally done poll. The "Covid State Project" is an academic consortium (so we can guess that their work won't replicate anyway), and these people REALLY want to believe that left wing academics sit at the top of the informational totem pole. This sort of polling is a waste of time because you can get any result you like, it has confirmation bias all over its design. Want to show that <outgroup> is stupid and dumb? Find the most extreme and stupid beliefs held only by a tiny minority of members of that outgroup and poll everyone on only those questions (an actual question they asked about, "do vaccines contain microchips"). In fact not all of their questions are even correct. They only asked four, and one of them was "is there any impact on fertility" which was rated false. This is itself a lie and I know this, because my fiancés best friend lost her period for nearly six months. No periods = no fertility, so I have seen with my own eyes that this can happen. Not surprisingly, this is the question in which the highest number of people said yes to, yet they rated this belief false and claimed anyone who believes it is "misinformed". This probably explains their otherwise unexplainable finding that young parents are amongst the "wrongest" people. Young parents are exactly the sort of people who are most likely to know lots of women who are caring about periods and fertility, and thus who will be the first to pick up on widespread disruption to menstrual cycles. When they answer correctly that vaccination can affect cycles and thus fertility, they get graded as misinformed. It's garbage-grade research like this which makes academics look so corrupt and terrible. 14 academics worked on this and a poll with four questions, one of which has the wrong answer, is the best they can do.
- fortuna86 5y ago
  > The "Covid State Project" is an academic consortium (so we can guess that their work won't replicate anyway) I'm not sure what you mean by that (perhaps just a simple case of discrediting the messenger in order to ignore the message), but this fact: > The single biggest predictor, by far, of belief in vaccine misinformation? Identifying as a Republican, reflecting the widespread misinformation and conspiracy theorizing about Covid on the right. Is supported by polling, hospital rates, death rates, etc. Denying it because it makes your 'side' look bad is not only silly, but dangerous. People are dying. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/briefing/covid-red-states-vaccinations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/briefing/covid-red-states... https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/29/covid-19-is-crushing-red-states-why-isnt-trump-turning-his-rallies-into-mass-vaccination-sites/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/29/covid-19-is... https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/580607-the-death-rates-from-covid-in-red-america-and https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...