Why the Left Relies on Statistical Illiteracy. And what the Right can do about it.

In September 2022, three researchers published the provocatively titled article, “Do Introductory Courses Disproportionately Drive Minoritized Students Out of STEM Pathways?” That article got loads of social media publicity for its conclusion that unequal withdrawal rates from STEM degree tracks are due to systemic racism.

Co-authors Chad Topaz (“Data scientist/mathematician and activist” and co-founder of the Institute for the Quantitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity) and Nate Brown (“Math faculty like me can be a major barrier to diversifying STEM fields”) added to their scholarly research an opinion article that provides a guide for “How STEM Faculty Can Fight Institutional Racism and Sexism.”

The scholarly article is bunk. Professor Lee Jussim, a man who has considerable experience in detecting scientific emperors without clothes, eviscerated it on Substack:

The authors didn’t preregister their study, which means we don’t know whether they went fishing through the data for a hypothesis that would support their argument. (“Preregistration” requires researchers to state their hypothesis beforehand.)

The authors confused correlation with causation … and compounded this basic error by not searching for alternate hypotheses that might explain their data. Notably, they failed to consider hypotheses that didn’t support the presumption of systemic racism and sexism. Research that does not account for the extraordinary effect that researchers’ methodological decisions impose upon their results cannot be relied upon.

The study depended on p-values (i.e., probability measurements) that indicated no statistical significance, or on p-values so near the margin of insignificance that they were extremely likely to be fluke false-positive results.

The authors used unnecessarily broad measurement categories—so broad that Jussim concludes that they “seem to have purposely created measurement error when they did not need to.”

We know there’s lies, darn lies, and statistics. But we need experts who know this, who can tell a p-value from a Bayesian estimation, and who can communicate with the public. We must make plans now to educate this next generation of experts.

There is a LOT of ground that can (and should) be covered on this topic. I'll keep it simple (I hope).

The pandemic, among other things, revealed the depth of Authority Bias in the world. It also revealed the heightened demands for attention in our lives. The compounding of these two things resulted in wide swaths of people believing Fauci et al when they said X, that the shots released under EUA were clinically-tested vaccines, and that any objection came from people who didn't "follow the science."

Most people who studied statistics, detested statistics - but a few of us freaks loved it. Many folks actively Question Authority. The pandemic, and FreeRepublic, offered these freaks and folks a fertile minefield to exercise their chops. I read more articles in the Lancet, NEJM, Science, etc than ever. I saw FReepers jousting with fellow FReepers on technical details, getting into fights, flesh wounds, and accusing long time members of being Deep State plants. It was a magnificent demolition derby, and it continues today.

The net result, was we all became much smarter (well...I think so...). But that was because we made TIME for this demolition derby, AND most of us recognized that...well...we may not all be experts. Null's ping list allowed me to scan wide amounts of data and observe (and sometimes participate in) the derby.

MOST PEOPLE DO NOT CONSIDER THIS TYPE OF LEARNING TO BE A PRIOROTY. To be fair, having a family and a job is time consuming, I get it. But without an active, inquisitive and combative mindset, and - to borrow from Jesus - a burying of talents, so many people got swept up in the mania.

The time we spent on FR was likely replacing time that would be wasted on social media, TV, or personal hygiene. For many, it was a worthwhile tradeoff because that's how we roll.

One of the most magnificent contemporary pieces was written by Jeffrey Snyder, A Nation of Cowards. While the piece is overtly about concealed carry, it is much broader than that. To wit:

Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose responsibility is it to protect it? If you believe that it is the police's, not only are you wrong -- since the courts universally rule that they have no legal obligation to do so -- but you face some difficult moral quandaries. How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself?...One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back...He will never be content to rely solely on others for his safety, or to think he has done all that is possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking measures of avoidance.

What Snyder wrote applies literally to every situation under the sun, not just thieves in the night or bad dudes in an alley but bureaucrats in lab coats and college faculty in sport coats. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

But for a moment, consider the recently redpilled, or liberals smacked by reality. Do they possess the mindset Snyder references? No...the mildly freedom-curious lot will give up; They'll cave.

For the remnants, not only do they need the will to persevere through this conversion process, but in many ways they need a robust pro-liberty mindset that is exercised often.

As the meme goes, one does not simply become Deplorable over night. Sure, it's easy to see the immorality of what's going on. It's also easy to say, for example, "no, I'm not getting vaxxed." But, as difficult as it may be for people who've had a Framer's mindset all their life, noobs don't just follow up that new attitude with the ninja-like thought process and access to information to facilitate a successful redpilling in an instant. That process takes some time.

Yes, there ARE many people - backed by friends with Snyder's mindset that's exercised often - who climbed through the muck and mire of the conversion process successfully. But all the conservative educators and robust understanding of p-values and logistic regression is worthless, unless we inculcate a mindset of Anti-Authority Bias, Assiduous Inquiry, and Snyderism.

Homeschooling helps, as does FR and similar outlets. I see many youths who are getting redpilled by podcasts, Joe Rogan (yes...he's stupid sometimes but his redpilling reach and impact is undeniable), and Musk's Twitter takedown. If this is kept up, common knowledge of heteroskedasticity, and America wanting in on ping lists, cannot be far behind.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.