Economist: Republicans in Search of a Nominee

[Elephant]

I won't get past his character issues.

I mentioned Huckabee. I'm usually not real fond of social conservatives, but I like him despite myself.

I remember now. I think Huckabee is happy with his Fox gig. I don't see him running again. 6 months ago I would have said yes, but I think he realizes he has a cushy job where he is and doesn't need the headache.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

I just can't believe Republicans would seriously consider Gingrich after absolutely RAILING on Edwards for infidelity. The hypocrisy of some people is mind-boggling. I mean, I can get past Palin's inexperience vs. Obama's inexperience, since Palin was a governor (albeit for not very long), so I can let that hypocrisy slide, but infidelity? Come on.

And I would never vote for Palin - she is not a leader of the free world, I'm sorry to say.

 

[servumtuum]

Im going to assume thats sarcasm and not real shock. You should know that party lines delete any hypocrisy with simple lines like "they did it" or "look at them"

You nailed it, Mike. It's not just the poltical parties who do this "spin control", either-that's something one would expect from them. Voters, especially those with strong ideological positions themselves, will forgive those with whom they share an ideological stance nearly anything while simultaneously using the "character" attack on those with whom they disagree. It's part of confirmation bias, I've referred to it before-we'll believe that absolutely insane imagined malevolent qualities belong to our political opponents while believing the ones we support are harbingers of peace, prosperity, and a nearly utopian society.

 

[Goaldeje]

You nailed it, Mike. It's not just the poltical parties who do this "spin control", either-that's something one would expect from them. Voters, especially those with strong ideological positions themselves, will forgive those with whom they share an ideological stance nearly anything while simultaneously using the "character" attack on those with whom they disagree. It's part of confirmation bias, I've referred to it before-we'll believe that absolutely insane imagined malevolent qualities belong to our political opponents while believing the ones we support are harbingers of peace, prosperity, and a nearly utopian society.

Well put Serv.

And since clearly are aligned with me, I completely agree.
Posted via BGO Mobile Device

 

[fansince62]

I just can't believe Republicans would seriously consider Gingrich after absolutely RAILING on Edwards for infidelity. The hypocrisy of some people is mind-boggling. I mean, I can get past Palin's inexperience vs. Obama's inexperience, since Palin was a governor (albeit for not very long), so I can let that hypocrisy slide, but infidelity? Come on.

And I would never vote for Palin - she is not a leader of the free world, I'm sorry to say.

in most worlds I might agree...but...cmon...Obama did drugs.

As for your Palin position on whether you'd vote for her.....I can respect that. I just have contempt for how that woman has been demonized and treated.

Obama is not a leader of the free world either. Obama isn't even a leader.

 

[fansince62]

You nailed it, Mike. It's not just the poltical parties who do this "spin control", either-that's something one would expect from them. Voters, especially those with strong ideological positions themselves, will forgive those with whom they share an ideological stance nearly anything while simultaneously using the "character" attack on those with whom they disagree. It's part of confirmation bias, I've referred to it before-we'll believe that absolutely insane imagined malevolent qualities belong to our political opponents while believing the ones we support are harbingers of peace, prosperity, and a nearly utopian society.

not me. I'm very clear on how I see things: who will do me, my family and my values the least damage/violence. it's really not that hard to figure out.

btw...like it or not...there is a war going on over culture, values and ends.

 

[servumtuum]

Uh-huh........really.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to appreciate their mistakes.[1] The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence. Competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. As Kruger and Dunning (1999) conclude, "Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others" (p. 1127). [2]

The effect is not specifically limited to the observation that ignorance of a topic is conducive to overconfident assertions about it, and Dunning and Kruger cite a study saying that 94% of college professors rank their work as "above average" (relative to their peers), to underscore that the highly intelligent and informed are hardly exempt.[3] Rather, the effect is about paradoxical defects in perception of skill, in oneself and others, regardless of the particular skill and its intellectual demands, whether it is chess, playing golf[4] or driving a car.[3]


References:
^ a b Morris, Errol (2010-06-20). "The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)". Opinionator: Exclusive Online Commentary From The Times. New York Times. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
^ a b Kruger, Justin; David Dunning (1999). "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (6): 1121–34. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121. PMID 10626367.
^ a b c d Ehrlinger, Joyce; Johnson, Kerri; Banner, Matthew; Dunning, David; Kruger, Justin (2008). "Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of (absent) self-insight among the incompetent" (PDF). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 105 (105): 98–121. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.05.002.
^ Goode, Erica (2000-01-18). "Among the Inept, Researchers Discover, Ignorance Is Bliss". New York Times (New York). Retrieved 2010-06-26.
^ Charles Darwin (1871). "The Descent of Man" (w). pp. Introduction, page 4. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
^ Wilkins, Eliza Gregory, “"Know thyself" in Greek and Latin literature”, George Banta Publishing Company: 1917, pp. 41-45.
^ Dunning, David; Kerri Johnson, Joyce Ehrlinger and Justin Kruger (2003). "Why people fail to recognize their own incompetence". Current Directions in Psychological Science 12 (3): 83–87. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.01235.
^ Dunning, David, “Self-Insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself (Essays in Social Psychology),” Psychology Press: 2005, pp. 14–15. ISBN 1841690740
^ Joyce Ehrlinger; David Dunning (January 2003). "How Chronic Self-Views Influence (and Potentially Mislead) Estimates of Performance". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (American Psychological Association) 84 (1): 5–17. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.1.5.
^ Daniel R. Ames; Lara K. Kammrath (September 2004). "Mind-Reading and Metacognition: Narcissism, not Actual Competence, Predicts Self-Estimated Ability". Journal of Nonverbal Behavior (Springer Netherlands) 28 (3): 187–209. doi:10.1023/B:JONB.0000039649.20015.0e.
^ Burson, K.; Larrick, R.; Klayman, J. (2006). "Skilled or unskilled, but still unaware of it: how perceptions of difficulty drive miscalibration in relative comparisons". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90 (1): 60–77. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.90.1.60. PMID 16448310. edit
^ DeAngelis, Tori (feb 2003). "Why we overestimate our competence". Monitor on Psychology. American Psychological Association. p. 60. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
^ Tabarrok, Alex (2010-06-21). "The Dunning-Kruger Effect". Marginal Revolution (blog). Retrieved 2010-06-27.

Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect




Thinking you're exempt from human tendencies toward misconstruing things is not an indicator of reliability.

 

[fansince62]

Uh-huh........really.



Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect




Thinking you're exempt from human tendencies toward misconstruing things is not an indicator of reliability.

uh huh...my my...how contemptuous and superior we have become!!

"the unskilled"....."cognitive bias".."poor decisions"....."incompetence"


bahahahaha...that surely sounds like a disciplined, scientific assessment. and comical in light of what we know "highly skilled" (codespeak for advanced education) folks at NPR, Sen Kerry, Obama, have said. Are you serious?

and since your "j'accuse" was pointed at the entire electorate....

..in terms of core values and societal ends....we're all a bunch of boobs who can't think our way through a paper bag. we just aimlessly wander into these values and beliefs and mindlessly associate with those political agents who champion those values and beliefs. that capture the gist of it?

man o man...sounds exactly like what Obama, Pelosi and other Liberals argue. and, of course, you know I will treat with a grain of salt anything referenced by the NYT.

now..I can't discount that this might accurately reflect the skills, cognitive biases, etc., of your immediate associations and therefore squares with the "science". that was a freebie...apologies in advance.

again.....Serv...what is going on now is a war: culture, values, and ends. if you want to label someone's value system a "cognitive bias"...well......not much room for discussion.

 

[servumtuum]

uh huh...my my...how contemptuous and superior we have become!!

My irony meter just exploded.

 

[servumtuum]

uh huh...my my...how contemptuous and superior we have become!!

"the unskilled"....."cognitive bias".."poor decisions"....."incompetence"


bahahahaha...that surely sounds like a disciplined, scientific assessment. and comical in light of what we know "highly skilled" (codespeak for advanced education) folks at NPR, Sen Kerry, Obama, have said. Are you serious?

Excuse the double post, but I forgot to include this. Aparently you overlooked this paragraph:

The effect is not specifically limited to the observation that ignorance of a topic is conducive to overconfident assertions about it, and Dunning and Kruger cite a study saying that 94% of college professors rank their work as "above average" (relative to their peers), to underscore that the highly intelligent and informed are hardly exempt.[3] Rather, the effect is about paradoxical defects in perception of skill, in oneself and others, regardless of the particular skill and its intellectual demands, whether it is chess, playing golf[4] or driving a car.[3]

No one is exempt from things like confirmation bias, apophenia, ad hominem and other assorted logical fallacies and, in this case, overestimation of their own skill at judging their correctness without external input to either verify or question what they believe to be the case. In fact the belief that one is immune from such effects is wonderful evidence of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in action.

 

[Goaldeje]

My irony meter just exploded.

I haven't laughed that hard in a good long time. My wife is still staring at me...

 

[Lanky Livingston]

My irony meter just exploded.

I haven't laughed that hard in a good long time. My wife is still staring at me...

I LOL'd pretty hard also.

I disagree with the part about driving a car - I really *AM* the best driver on the road.

 

[fansince62]

Excuse the double post, but I forgot to include this. Aparently you overlooked this paragraph:



No one is exempt from things like confirmation bias, apophenia, ad hominem and other assorted logical fallacies and, in this case, overestimation of their own skill at judging their correctness without external input to either verify or question what they believe to be the case. In fact the belief that one is immune from such effects is wonderful evidence of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in action.

and you have been consistently missing my point: the whole predicate for your post is that these "explanations" for group behaviors (Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, Marx, and other sociologists...as opposed to psychologists...had differing points-of-view...btw. i.e., there is more to explaining behavior than the soft science of psychology) are grist for scientific analysis and form-fitted to logical reasoning. I'm asserting that values, belief systems, etc., precede that logical formula.

These posts are conflating two different things: in simple (or is that simplistic)terms...they are asserting that as sentient, "rational" life....human beings are nevertheless inherently flawed - the very process of thought itself is a hybrid of rational and irrational influences. They move on to assert, or is it insert, their own biases by claiming no one is immune to the irrational influences that arrive from external sources....that these external influences are used as props...as it were...to conciously or unconsciously justify conclusions arrived at through a flawed process. The argument then procedes with the usual value laden crap that anyone who does not recognize these flaws is unskilled, incompetent, bah, blah blah.

here are my problems with this claim:

1) it's not scientifically useful. clearly, not everyone is susceptible to these external, irrational/group affiliative, whatever label you want to use, impulses/flaws to the same degree. casual observation demonstrates that. if that is the case...how does one get to the point of assessing to what degree "incompetence", "unskilled", etc., etc., play into a decision process? are you simply claiming that all political discourse is unskilled and incompetent?

2) You are the one...it appears...who is laying claim to the idea that this psychological model explains the individual and group behvaiors we are witnessing today. I happen to think the casual factors are broader. So, what, exactly are you asserting? and how will you establish its truth empirically? what are the metrics? ad hominens per dangling participle? post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies per thought? Union thugs bused in per 1000 demonstrators?

3) who, exactly, defines "unskilled" and "incompetent"? where is the dividing line? what are the criteria?

4) it doesn't explain how one gets to values and beliefs in the first place. that, in my book, is antecedent to any explanation of group behaviors in a political context - which is what we are discussing. values and belief systems are not inherently products of rational, scientific decision-making (one of the biases of many people in power today). in which case...claims about "unskilled"..."incompetence"....raise a big "so what". Those are irrelevant...errrr...biases .....because they assume what has to be proven - that arriving at values and belief systems is/should be the product of some skilled, methodical, scientific, what have you, process. so...if I elect to support some politician because this official is a Catholic and I believe in God because, well, it's self evident, accept the moral precepts of the Catholic religion as a de facto consequence of that belief...I am somehow an unskilled, incompetent, cognitively biased voter? seems to me that this whole psychology is a really nifty tool for labeling anyone who disagrees with my chosen political affiliations as "unskilled"...."incompetent"...."cognitively biased"......and of course.....not "self aware".

5) It's the loaded language I find fundamentally objectionable. It suggests that the starting point is flawed though the focus is on the process. These are themselves value-laden terms and they don't get you to where one imgaines they would like to finally arrive: skilled, cognitively unbiased, competent, self-aware thinking (and by inference...conclusions). No doubt there is "cognitive bias" and elements of the "irrational" that play into explanations for group behaviors in the political arena. but those are not the only factors in play and do not comprehensively explain what we are seeing today.

6) Let us accept every last syllable as gospel truth. what are you proposing is the skilled, cognitively unbiased, competent, self-aware approach that should be guiding/girding the electorate's political decision-making process? be careful here...I'm not addressing what is the best path for solving our energy problems, for example. I am asking about the starting point - the values and belief systems.

so...have at it...rip a Wiki post off the Internet and claim Universal truth for that page of references as explaining human behavior in the current political context. that is your prerogative. I'm much more interested in the values and belief systems anyway. it's where the real fight is today. if it is your contention...returning to my previous example....that a belief in a God/religion is the outcome of an incompetent, cognitively biased thought exercise by unskilled people...so be it. I might even find common ground on this one as I survey the Muslim landscape.....but I digress. The punchline? those values and belief systems cover more landscape than the rational foundation that lies at the core of this argument.

had those references employed less combustible language I might have been more inclined to agree....but not as quoted.....it's clearly the product of cognitively biased thinkers (i.e., agenda based itself) ....

still love ya man! I may disagree on this one...more along the lines of comprehensiveness as a scientific tool than anything else....but in my own irrrational/biased/incompetent way....I find you one of the best, most thoughtful, least contentious posters in our little community!!!

 

[Lanky Livingston]

in most worlds I might agree...but...cmon...Obama did drugs.

So did Bush. So did probably most every other president (they were just never caught, or the records were "successfully" expunged). So did probably the majority of people in the US (if they are honest about it).

As for your Palin position on whether you'd vote for her.....I can respect that. I just have contempt for how that woman has been demonized and treated.

Obama is not a leader of the free world either. Obama isn't even a leader.

I disagree with how she's been demonized also - she's good enough at that on her own! No need to help her out!

And Obama certainly looked like the refreshing young leader this country needed to head in the right direction in 2008 - at least to the majority of Americans. He's had some stumbles along the way for sure, but he still has *some* time to turn the ship around...we shall see.

 

[servumtuum]

and you have been consistently missing my point: the whole predicate for your post is that these "explanations" for group behaviors (Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, Marx, and other sociologists...as opposed to psychologists...had differing points-of-view...btw. i.e., there is more to explaining behavior than the soft science of psychology) are grist for scientific analysis and form-fitted to logical reasoning. I'm asserting that values, belief systems, etc., precede that logical formula.

These posts are conflating two different things: in simple (or is that simplistic)terms...they are asserting that as sentient, "rational" life....human beings are nevertheless inherently flawed - the very process of thought itself is a hybrid of rational and irrational influences. They move on to assert, or is it insert, their own biases by claiming no one is immune to the irrational influences that arrive from external sources....that these external influences are used as props...as it were...to conciously or unconsciously justify conclusions arrived at through a flawed process. The argument then procedes with the usual value laden crap that anyone who does not recognize these flaws is unskilled, incompetent, bah, blah blah.

here are my problems with this claim:

1) it's not scientifically useful. clearly, not everyone is susceptible to these external, irrational/group affiliative, whatever label you want to use, impulses/flaws to the same degree. casual observation demonstrates that. if that is the case...how does one get to the point of assessing to what degree "incompetence", "unskilled", etc., etc., play into a decision process? are you simply claiming that all political discourse is unskilled and incompetent?

2) You are the one...it appears...who is laying claim to the idea that this psychological model explains the individual and group behvaiors we are witnessing today. I happen to think the casual factors are broader. So, what, exactly are you asserting? and how will you establish its truth empirically? what are the metrics? ad hominens per dangling participle? post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies per thought? Union thugs bused in per 1000 demonstrators?

3) who, exactly, defines "unskilled" and "incompetent"? where is the dividing line? what are the criteria?

4) it doesn't explain how one gets to values and beliefs in the first place. that, in my book, is antecedent to any explanation of group behaviors in a political context - which is what we are discussing. values and belief systems are not inherently products of rational, scientific decision-making (one of the biases of many people in power today). in which case...claims about "unskilled"..."incompetence"....raise a big "so what". Those are irrelevant...errrr...biases .....because they assume what has to be proven - that arriving at values and belief systems is/should be the product of some skilled, methodical, scientific, what have you, process. so...if I elect to support some politician because this official is a Catholic and I believe in God because, well, it's self evident, accept the moral precepts of the Catholic religion as a de facto consequence of that belief...I am somehow an unskilled, incompetent, cognitively biased voter? seems to me that this whole psychology is a really nifty tool for labeling anyone who disagrees with my chosen political affiliations as "unskilled"...."incompetent"...."cognitively biased"......and of course.....not "self aware".

5) It's the loaded language I find fundamentally objectionable. It suggests that the starting point is flawed though the focus is on the process. These are themselves value-laden terms and they don't get you to where one imgaines they would like to finally arrive: skilled, cognitively unbiased, competent, self-aware thinking (and by inference...conclusions). No doubt there is "cognitive bias" and elements of the "irrational" that play into explanations for group behaviors in the political arena. but those are not the only factors in play and do not comprehensively explain what we are seeing today.

6) Let us accept every last syllable as gospel truth. what are you proposing is the skilled, cognitively unbiased, competent, self-aware approach that should be guiding/girding the electorate's political decision-making process? be careful here...I'm not addressing what is the best path for solving our energy problems, for example. I am asking about the starting point - the values and belief systems.

so...have at it...rip a Wiki post off the Internet and claim Universal truth for that page of references as explaining human behavior in the current political context. that is your prerogative. I'm much more interested in the values and belief systems anyway. it's where the real fight is today. if it is your contention...returning to my previous example....that a belief in a God/religion is the outcome of an incompetent, cognitively biased thought exercise by unskilled people...so be it. I might even find common ground on this one as I survey the Muslim landscape.....but I digress. The punchline? those values and belief systems cover more landscape than the rational foundation that lies at the core of this argument.

had those references employed less combustible language I might have been more inclined to agree....but not as quoted.....it's clearly the product of cognitively biased thinkers (i.e., agenda based itself) ....

still love ya man! I may disagree on this one...more along the lines of comprehensiveness as a scientific tool than anything else....but in my own irrrational/biased/incompetent way....I find you one of the best, most thoughtful, least contentious posters in our little community!!!

In retrospect, I probably should have done a redaction of the Wiki article and removed the value-laden terms you found bothersome-I will remember that for future reference.

I erred in not being specific. The specifics of the Wiki article notwithstanding , my aim was simply this-there is evidence that to some extent humans have a capacity for overestimating their ability to avoid logical fallacies and other cognitive errors and the very fact of the uncertainty regarding the extent and uniformity of distribution of this in human beings makes assumptions of "immunity" from it at the very least problematical. I'm not immune and neither is anyone else. I hesitate to use the word "flaws" here because the problematical nature of it is not necessarily a matter entirely of choice.

I wasn't aiming this at the general discussion about voter motivation but at your comment asserting an immunity from such biases. However, in this post, you indicated an apparent acknowledgement that you also share the ability to be occasionally irrational along with the rest of us so my "raised-eyebrow" response seems to have been rendered moot.

The whole "how values and beliefs are engendered and evolve over time" is a separate matter. It could be a fascinating and tempting excursion into the complexities of the human brain and the multitude of interactions involving human social organization but that will have to wait for another time and probably another venue, I'm afraid.

By the way, I also have high regard for you, fansince. I've long ago realized we are going to be in disagreement at times, but you provoke me to think and I can't help but appreciate someone who does me that favor.

 

[fansince62]

So did Bush. So did probably most every other president (they were just never caught, or the records were "successfully" expunged). So did probably the majority of people in the US (if they are honest about it).

so that makes it ok for the President?

that is one way of looking at it! then again...others...many others...saw him for the masked, inexperienced fraud he has turned out to be. he doesn't have time to turn it around....it would take too long to hire someone with real leadership skills to make real decisions in his stead. but we can take that up some other time with the millions of new unemployed our neophyte law professor has so improved life circumstances for.

admire your steadfastness.....question everything else.