Back in June of 2010, SayUncle and I got into it a little bit over a study purporting to show that liberals are Teh Suck at basic economics while libertarians and conservatives are Teh Smart. I alleged that the questions were biased in a way that made liberals in particular more likely to do poorly; i.e., that the test, by its very design, was biased against liberals.
Please excuse me while I do my I was right, neener-neener happy dance.
My shocked face!
Judd
Kevin
Kevin T. Keith
leanleft
tgirsch
Yeah – first of all the real study wasn’t even what it purported to be. Second, after misappropriating the questions in the first place, the study still misrepresented what it was studying. I’d say they did this unintentionally, but it’s so abjectly obvious, I’m dumbfounded and Occam’s Razor is pointing me toward an accusation of disingenuousness. And, FWIW, the same charge would apply to the second stduy, except that by then they “figured out” what they were actually studying in the first place.
Look, the questions on the first survey were more ideological than economic. A quiz about the applications of economic principles? Pshh… A quiz like that would sound more like–
1. In the case of an economic slowdown due to insufficient aggregate consumer demand, which of the following government behaviors represent a Keynsian perspective?
2. The tendency for individuals to value their possessions more highly than identical possessions held by another is known as?
…
Many of the first survey’s questions weren’t even predominantly economic at core. And, they were phrased in a way where pretty much anybody with an IQ above 90 would really want to answer “depends” to most of them.
And, finally, WTF is up with “somewhat agree” and “somewhat disagree” as being discrete choices, and then being assigned to different groups when tabulating responses. If you somewhat agree, then you also somewhat disagree. Either use a numeric scale or something. Of just go, strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly agree. That’s just bad research design. 101 level stuff here.
C’mon Man!
Also, I’m waiting for the definitive Lean Left Penn State post!
[...] Now, I think everyone sucks at economics. [...]
One doesn’t need a study to determine whether liberals are teh suck at basic economics. History shows that they are.
Yeah, because it’s liberals who gave us such gems as “deficits don’t matter.”
Actually, lefties (not “liberals”; don’t be confusing the two) is where I have usually heard that sort of sentiment. I only recently learned it was a Dick Cheney quote. I wasn’t that surprised, though, as I’m not stuck in that particular trap.
Seerak:
Who’s confusing the two? “Liberals” was the term
YOUmike w used in the comment I was responding to.In any case, congratulations on not self-identifying as either liberal or conservative. But guess what: according to the same study, libertarian/objectivist types do just as poorly when quizzed on economic principles that are inconvenient to their particular ideology. So what’s your point?
By the way, I fixed your link, which was broken. As seems to be typical for libertarian types, it’s an incessantly long screed that ultimately manages to say nothing of substance. But at least now others can find it and judge it for themselves.