NOTE: I now write for Aporia Magazine. Please sign up there! A recent headline in the Daily Mail states: ‘British public hugely overestimates the size of minority groups, including trans and gay people and vegans, study shows’. The article was based on a YouGov poll which asked people to guess what percentage of the population belongs to different minority groups. It found that the average guess was substantially greater than the true percentage in every single case. For example, the public said that 15% of the population is gay, whereas the true figure is much lower (see below).
Interesting stuff as usual, Noel. Interesting to note how much these misestimates are encouraged by other minorities. For example, look to the number of minority issues covered on the BBC website!
I think there's also a philosophy that if enough minorities a lumped together, they become a majority. This is now becoming common in, eg, "17 activist groups believe.....", even if some of them are just two men and a dog! P
..”error that has been interpreted previously as topic-specific “ignorance” is actually predicted systematically by a simple, issue-agnostic psychophysical model of proportion estimation under uncertainty”.
Pithy that😬. Great piece Noah. One of the problems of perception abd understanding for everyone (even trained social scientists) is this insistence on indecipherable, arcane language by researchers. Its as though every word is designed to obfuscate. Not the fault of Landy et al more “systematic uncertainty of journal acceptance of non quasi hyperbolic qualifiers in abstract title!
Interesting stuff as usual, Noel. Interesting to note how much these misestimates are encouraged by other minorities. For example, look to the number of minority issues covered on the BBC website!
I think there's also a philosophy that if enough minorities a lumped together, they become a majority. This is now becoming common in, eg, "17 activist groups believe.....", even if some of them are just two men and a dog! P
..”error that has been interpreted previously as topic-specific “ignorance” is actually predicted systematically by a simple, issue-agnostic psychophysical model of proportion estimation under uncertainty”.
Pithy that😬. Great piece Noah. One of the problems of perception abd understanding for everyone (even trained social scientists) is this insistence on indecipherable, arcane language by researchers. Its as though every word is designed to obfuscate. Not the fault of Landy et al more “systematic uncertainty of journal acceptance of non quasi hyperbolic qualifiers in abstract title!