From: kurkku@hassuserveri.fi   
      
   "David Friedman"  kirjoitti   
   viestissä:ddfr-34221E.09310921082008@CA.NEWS.VERIO.NET...   
   > In article ,   
   > Anton  wrote:   
   >   
   > ...   
   >   
   >> I follow the news and read the statistics. I also am familiar with the   
   >> policies of my country and as I live here have had first hand experience   
   >> of most parts of the society. I live in this country and of course know   
   >> a lot of fellow Finns who live in cities and rural areas from west to   
   >> east, south to north. I claim to have a pretty good picture of the   
   >> extent of private security used in this country. I also have studied the   
   >> society in theory and I know people who work for our institutions and I   
   >> know people who are their clients, so I know very well of why those   
   >> institutions exists and for what purpose, and to some extent what effect   
   >> they have on the life of the ordinary Finn. As I follow media I claim to   
   >> have a good picture of crime and other statistics from my country and   
   >> other countries to conduct comparisons.   
   >   
   > In my experience of the U.S., people vastly overestimate how well   
   > informed they are about conditions in their own country. It was quite   
   > common, for instance, to see claims that crime rates were increasing at   
   > a time when they had been falling for over a decade.   
   >   
   > In my own case, I took it for granted that most people didn't really   
   > believe in religion, since I didn't and the people I knew didn't seem   
   > to, for quite a long time. Eventually, between looking at poll data and   
   > knowing more about a wider range of people, I concluded that my views   
   > were more nearly the exception than the rule.   
   >   
   > In my field, economics, there are beliefs widely accepted in the media   
   > and the general population--I'm thinking specifically of arguments for   
   > protective tariffs and of views on the trade deficit--which were refuted   
   > nearly two hundred years ago, and would be defended by almost no   
   > competent economist today.   
   >   
   > Finland is a much smaller country than the U.S., so it's possible that   
   > its citizens are better informed about it. But knowing "what effect they   
   > have on the life of the ordinary Finn" may be a harder problem than you   
   > assume, since it depends not merely on knowing the institutions and   
   > knowing the lives of ordinary Finns, but on understanding the causal   
   > connection between the two.   
   >   
   > Let me offer a simple example, again from my field--minimum wage laws.   
   > One could know lots about the law and its application. One could know   
   > people whose wages were raised by the minimum wage law, and other people   
   > who had a hard time getting a job. But none of that would tell you   
   > whether the actual effect of the law was to help poor people, by raising   
   > their income, or to hurt them, by pricing them out of the market--making   
   > it illegal for them to work at a wage representing what they were   
   > actually worth to a potential employer. Getting an answer to that   
   > question would require some fairly careful and competent statistical   
   > work. And someone outside the field would find it very  hard to answer   
   > the question by looking at reports of such work, because the issue is   
   > politically loaded, hence one where there might well be bogus work on   
   > both sides. I suspect the same is true in many  other cases.   
   >   
   > ...   
   >   
   >> > It's hard work to understand one's society on a level higher than   
   >> > knowing the price of eggs and gasoline.   
   >>   
   >> 25 years of school and 35 years of living in the society and exposure to   
   >> statistics from the media might count in many people's books. What you   
   >> regard as a sufficient enough level of "understanding" is your problem.   
   >   
   > How reliable do you think statistics from the media are?   
   >   
   > As it happens, I just came across a case striking enough so that I made   
   > it a blog post. The New York Times, which is about as respectable a   
   > media outlet as there is, ran a story asserting that a recent government   
   > report found that about two-thirds of the corporations doing business in   
   > the U.S. had paid no federal income taxes at all during a seven year   
   > period, from 1998 to 2005. I found that astonishing, so googled for   
   > further information.   
   >   
   > Reuters had a story on the same report, published on the same day.   
   > According to the Reuters story, which was somewhat more detailed, the   
   > figures were for the number of corporations who, in at least one year   
   > during the seven year period, paid no federal income taxes. There is   
   > nothing particularly surprising or shocking about a corporation that,   
   > one year out of seven, ends up with a loss instead of a profit.   
   >   
   > Reuters, of course, is also a highly respectable media outlet. So one of   
   > the two--I'm guessing it's the Times--got the story wildly wrong.   
   > Googling around, I found lots of people online repeating the Times   
   > story--and, so far as I could tell, I was the only one who had looked   
   > for further information and found the other version. I predict with some   
   > certainty that most people who saw the Times story, either directly or   
   > second hand, will never see the correction, supposing that the Times   
   > publishes one, and will, a year from now, still believe the probably   
   > false facts from the story.   
   >   
   > --   
   > http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/   
   > Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.   
   > Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)