Why don’t people know stuff?
There’s been a lot of discussion on the internet and in the UK media about the Royal Statistical Society’s poll on widespread misbeliefs in the UK, which we covered about a week ago.
One useful response is from Alex Harrowell at The Yorkshire Ranter
The deficit model of ignorance defines ignorance to be a deficiency disease, in which individuals lack facts and are therefore prone to believing nonsense. Ignorant individuals know fewer facts than non-ignorant individuals. This is true as far as it goes. The problem arises when you try to determine causes or prescribe treatment. The deficit model leads to the conclusion that you should, somehow, give them fact pills. Once supplemented with facts, they’ll be OK.
The problem, though, is that this doesn’t actually work, and raises the question as to why they got like that.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
Hi Thomas,
Somebody really needs to do a study like this in New Zealand. I think that the results would be similar.
Could something be funded via the Kickstarter model? I would chip in.
11 years ago
and we’re back to May 2 … Why does no-one listen to us?
11 years ago
I wonder what customs would say if you declared fact pills in your baggage.
11 years ago