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> I was more interested in the impact on the subtopic specific results because of what we discussed. I think they're both interesting. Broad overconfidence in

by mlyle 4y ago

> I was more interested in the impact on the subtopic specific results because of what we discussed. I think they're both interesting. Broad overconfidence in performance in basic science combined with low performance is an interesting characteristic of a population. The fact that this is represented in those with contrarian views is interesting. > So that translates to a fraction of a question difference in results. The subscale finding, just shows that this same phenomenon appears to also extend to the subjects they are contrarian about. And it's about the same magnitude of effect, because there's very few questions on the subscale. On the big test, a participant does about 2% worse per unit of disagreement. On the subscale, they do about 1.8% worse per unit of disagreement. The effect appears to have the same magnitude and is statistically significant in both cases. This is an invitation to do studies on specific fields of disagreement with better samples and more questions on the subscale. But this early research casts a wide net across many types of anti-consensus view. Study 5 is a small, possibly flawed step in this direction. I'd be particularly interested in a 2 variable analysis that attempts to model how one's overall objective performance and level of disagreement models objective performance in the specific field where they disagreed. > outliers, ... This is all moving goalposts when we were originally discussing the question set. I've already agreed that sociology and psychology research via Turk is problematic and faces many confounds and selection problems.

somenameforme 4y ago
Something I recently considered was that many of the questions, the "good" questions, do ultimately test ideology more than knowledge. The obvious example would be something like "Humans share the majority of their genes with chimps." This is of course factually true true, but it seems much more likely to test ideology than scientific knowledge, in part because of how it is phrased. Imagine the question were framed as "Scientists claim that humans share the majority of their genes with chimps." Now you are no longer testing agreement with the scientific view, but knowledge of it. And perhaps a bigger issue is that there were literally zero questions that would do the same "trick" vice-versa for somebody who ideologically agrees with one of the topics, but otherwise lacked much knowledge. Testing this would have been quite easy by simply throwing in questions that sound like they fit the consensus but have an important aspect that makes them false. An example would be "Evolution is a process of improving a species which, over time, may lead one species to become an entirely new one." That is, of course, false - but somebody of low knowledge and high consensus agreement, would likely consider it to be true. My personal hypothesis would be that extreme views tend to be associated with high confidence and relatively low knowledge. And this could be extremes of agreement or disagreement with a topic. As Betrand Russell put it, "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
- mlyle 4y ago
  > This is of course factually true true If it's factually true, it's not testing ideology. > but it seems much more likely to test ideology than scientific knowledge, in part because of how it is phrased Is there anyone credible who disagrees with the statement here? I think a bigger issue is that it may be testing not knowledge but careful, critical reading. I can score well on this test, but my flippant quick answers are not very accurate. I am not surprised those that are worse at critical reading might be more likely to have anti-consensus views. > My personal hypothesis would be that extreme views tend to be associated with high confidence and relatively low knowledge. That doesn't seem to be the case here; while we don't know the "1" full agreement results, the rest seems to be a pretty dang linear trend line.
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    Nobody is forced to accept a fact if they do not want to. There's a large gulf between awareness of knowledge, including facts, and agreement with such. This is an especially important nuance in this quiz, where the precise implications/meanings of knowledge vs ideology are a critical part of the study. Imagine that there was a secular Islamic expert. And he was quizzed on Islamic ideology in a similar fashion, such that he was obligated to imply belief in such, in his answers. Assuming he is being as accurate as he can in his responses, he would end up scoring as completely ignorant of Islam as he marked all beliefs as false. I disagree there's a clear trend here, even without the 1s, because there were clear exceptions such as e.g. climate change where, even by their metrics, anti-consensus views were predictive of greater knowledge. So you end up having to, at a minimum, limit the stated claim to specific fields.
    - mlyle 4y ago
      > Nobody is forced to accept a fact if they do not want to. There's a large gulf between awareness of knowledge, including facts, and agreement with such. This is an especially important nuance in this quiz, where the precise implications/meanings of knowledge vs ideology are a critical part of the study. OK, well, here they expressed disagreement with stuff that is not just the scientific consensus, but the overwhelming agreement. If you want to phrase it as disagreeing rather than knowledge being lacking-- I think this is unhelpful. I do not think the nuance you're driving at here is worth complicating the questions or instructions. > because there were clear exceptions such as e.g. climate change No. All 7 areas of controversy did worse on the entire test. It was not statistically significant for climate change and evolution. It was highly statistically significant for 4 of the remaining 5. 6 of the 7 did worse on their on subscales (significantly significant for 4 of these 6), with effect sizes of -.83, -.65, -.28, -.82, -.88, -.55; climate change had a non-statistically significant finding of an effect with slope .03. I do not consider this a counterexample. You've been really advocating for study power and significance of results... when it favors your argument.

by mlyle 4y ago

somenameforme 4y ago

Something I recently considered was that many of the questions, the "good" questions, do ultimately test ideology more than knowledge. The obvious example would be something like "Humans share the majority of their genes with chimps." This is of course factually true true, but it seems much more likely to test ideology than scientific knowledge, in part because of how it is phrased. Imagine the question were framed as "Scientists claim that humans share the majority of their genes with chimps." Now you are no longer testing agreement with the scientific view, but knowledge of it. And perhaps a bigger issue is that there were literally zero questions that would do the same "trick" vice-versa for somebody who ideologically agrees with one of the topics, but otherwise lacked much knowledge. Testing this would have been quite easy by simply throwing in questions that sound like they fit the consensus but have an important aspect that makes them false. An example would be "Evolution is a process of improving a species which, over time, may lead one species to become an entirely new one." That is, of course, false - but somebody of low knowledge and high consensus agreement, would likely consider it to be true. My personal hypothesis would be that extreme views tend to be associated with high confidence and relatively low knowledge. And this could be extremes of agreement or disagreement with a topic. As Betrand Russell put it, "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

mlyle 4y ago
> This is of course factually true true If it's factually true, it's not testing ideology. > but it seems much more likely to test ideology than scientific knowledge, in part because of how it is phrased Is there anyone credible who disagrees with the statement here? I think a bigger issue is that it may be testing not knowledge but careful, critical reading. I can score well on this test, but my flippant quick answers are not very accurate. I am not surprised those that are worse at critical reading might be more likely to have anti-consensus views. > My personal hypothesis would be that extreme views tend to be associated with high confidence and relatively low knowledge. That doesn't seem to be the case here; while we don't know the "1" full agreement results, the rest seems to be a pretty dang linear trend line.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  Nobody is forced to accept a fact if they do not want to. There's a large gulf between awareness of knowledge, including facts, and agreement with such. This is an especially important nuance in this quiz, where the precise implications/meanings of knowledge vs ideology are a critical part of the study. Imagine that there was a secular Islamic expert. And he was quizzed on Islamic ideology in a similar fashion, such that he was obligated to imply belief in such, in his answers. Assuming he is being as accurate as he can in his responses, he would end up scoring as completely ignorant of Islam as he marked all beliefs as false. I disagree there's a clear trend here, even without the 1s, because there were clear exceptions such as e.g. climate change where, even by their metrics, anti-consensus views were predictive of greater knowledge. So you end up having to, at a minimum, limit the stated claim to specific fields.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > Nobody is forced to accept a fact if they do not want to. There's a large gulf between awareness of knowledge, including facts, and agreement with such. This is an especially important nuance in this quiz, where the precise implications/meanings of knowledge vs ideology are a critical part of the study. OK, well, here they expressed disagreement with stuff that is not just the scientific consensus, but the overwhelming agreement. If you want to phrase it as disagreeing rather than knowledge being lacking-- I think this is unhelpful. I do not think the nuance you're driving at here is worth complicating the questions or instructions. > because there were clear exceptions such as e.g. climate change No. All 7 areas of controversy did worse on the entire test. It was not statistically significant for climate change and evolution. It was highly statistically significant for 4 of the remaining 5. 6 of the 7 did worse on their on subscales (significantly significant for 4 of these 6), with effect sizes of -.83, -.65, -.28, -.82, -.88, -.55; climate change had a non-statistically significant finding of an effect with slope .03. I do not consider this a counterexample. You've been really advocating for study power and significance of results... when it favors your argument.