this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024
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veritassium did this fascinating af video mirroring a study on people's political biases and how it influences reasoning: it seems like the more educated or intelligent you are, the more your biases interfere with your ability to analyze positions that are contrary to your own views and that interference is proportional to your level of education/intelligence and the people who don't have either are able to reason mostly the same whether or not their biases where challenged.
Alternate title: A single "study" presented from someone on the street is typically not enough to change anyone's perspective on a subject, especially if that "study" presents "facts" that are contradictory to the listener's previous knowledge.
Humans aren't rational. Humans are rationalizing. If someone on the street giving you a basic chart with 4 numbers on it is enough to change your mind, you likely didn't have much of an opinion to begin with.
it's literally a study conducted by Yale; as in the ivy league university: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992
the video reproduces the study in a shortened format suitable for youtube.
Yeah, and they act like learning about a new skin cream on the street is going to be subjected to the same level of scrutiny as learning about a new study on "gun bans", even though people have been studying this for decades and the results largely don't change, only the public perception of them.
It's like if they showed people a new study for "Earth gravity" vs "Moon gravity" and act surprised when people don't immediately catch on when their numbers say the moon makes you weigh more. You wouldn't be expecting that result OR trust a random person on the street to change your view of gravity with a chart of 4 numbers.
Yes, they found bias. Cool.
I dunno if equating numeracy with intelligence is a fair read, but an interesting study nonetheless.
that's how he defines numeracy in the video but he used the word "smarter" on youtube. i didn't think it fit either so i just went with "intelligence" because it means acquiring and using knowledge in a similar way to numeracy; but was still in keeping with the source & the youtube video.
I watched veritassium for a short while, but i can't take them serious with all the click bait. Can you provide a link to the proper study instead?
it's in the description of the video: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992
Lmao