One of the main reasons people tend to fail at analysis, is that they hold certain beliefs which are nothing more than myths.  When myths are readily believed however, evidence that seems to back that myth up is actively sought out and usually exaggerated.

What’s interesting in this case – is that we have two writers, from Naked Capitalism Blog & Alternet somewhat describing confirmation bias, but almost ironically show that their thinking fails from the same biases they wish to highlight.

What did they proffer (whole thing here via Naked Capitalism and here via Alternet)?

They state they are attempting to find out why people’s opinions don’t change even in the face of competing facts.  To do this, they use a study of selected people who believe Saddam was behind 9/11.  Since GWB, the 9/11 commission, and all other sources state this isn’t the case, then trying to understand why someone believes it is a noble goal and the research could potentially help understand human thinking.

Of course both pieces weren’t honestly seeking the answer, so in this case little can be gathered.  The good news however is that studies like this have been done before and we already understand to some degree why people don’t seem rational on certain topics.

First, they start off by implying that investors are not rational and do so by linking to a simple Google search.  Lazy sure, but most studies I’ve seen dealing with rationality of the individual begin with the false assumption there is some common answer to begin which every rational individual would chose.  Humans however define rationality by their values and desires;  therefore, their actions will also be very unique based upon those individual factors.

Leaving that aside, their point was to say, not only are investors irrational, but so are these people for these reasons (Naked Capitalism):

• [1] Many Americans felt an urgent need to seek justification for a war already in progress

• [2] Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.

• [3] “For the most part people completely ignore contrary information.”

• [4] “The study demonstrates voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information”

• [5] People get deeply attached to their beliefs, and form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter.

• [6] “We refer to this as ‘inferred justification, because for these voters, the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war.

• [7] “People were basically making up justifications for the fact that we were at war”

• [8] “They wanted to believe in the link [between 9/11 and Iraq] because it helped them make sense of a current reality. So voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information, whether we think that is good or bad for democratic practice, does at least demonstrate an impressive form of creativity.

Their premises basically fall into two types:

1. Those premises that have been proven true about the vast majority of the population in thousands of experiments….
2. & those premises which aren’t necessarily false, but reflect the authors’ thinking as the study and information provided do not lead to the conclusion they readily accept.

Looking at them in this light, we see that 2, 3, & 5 are all easily proven through prior studies and simple observations of current society.  If people didn’t seek out confirming information, Daily Kos, Free Republic, Huffington Post, and many, many other websites would be empty and failing.

For the remaining 5, the study does not bear out their premises.  The study (@ Alternet) demonstrates that even when giving people contrary factual information, many will continue to believe as they do.

However, they only used 49 people and are inferring their reason from justification based upon comments which don’t support their thesis.  The first participant quote they begin with is(via Alternet):

“Well, I bet they say that the commission didn’t have any proof of it,” one subject responded, “but I guess we still can have our opinions and feel that way even though they say that.”

This is a simple reflection of reality, to which the researchers find disturbing.  Why it isn’t disturbing to sane people is that I have yet to know anyone who doesn’t believe somethings which simply aren’t provable or for which factual information to the contrary exists.

To site to easy examples, the number of people who believe the CIA killed Kennedy & those who believe strongly in ancient herbal remedies for which no proof other than anecdotal is ever given.

The second quote the article uses:

Reasoned another: “Saddam, I can’t judge if he did what he’s being accused of, but if Bush thinks he did it, then he did it.”

Is an odd statement to use as it’s semi-meaningless.  When told President Bush stated publicly on a number of occasions that Saddam did not play a role in 9/11 & then that person continues to use that information has other issues than just confirmation bias.   They might honestly be trying to get justification for the war post-war, but I’m not sure by this information.

The third quote they use actually represents their best opportunity for demonstrating that people were rationalizing after the fact:

Others declined to engage the information at all. Most curious to the researchers were the respondents who reasoned that Saddam must have been connected to Sept. 11, because why else would the Bush Administration have gone to war in Iraq?

However, other reasons exist for this as well which have nothing to do with post-justification.   For instance, I might think Saddam is just worthless and any attempt to liberate the people who suffer through his tyranny is a good idea, but still think that GWB must believe it as that’s the only justification I can see.

In that case, it proves my analytical thinking skills as poor because other justifications certainly exist outside of both 9/11 & WMDs, but it necessarily doesn’t prove post-justification.

Additionally, I could think we went to war with Iraq and believe it’s because GWB believed there to be a link, and still disagree with the war itself.

That might seem like an odd statement, but there are in fact people, a small minority to be sure, but people who firmly believed the Taliban support Bin Laden and Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.  But even with that information, they don’t believe we should’ve gone to war.

Again, that’s a minority view to be sure, but when using it’s existence to disprove the study of 49 people, I believe the weight of my evidence of realistic & feasible alternative theories to the data provided is stronger than theirs.

Regardless of the individual reasons anyone might use to rationalize beliefs for which counter-factual information exists, their data doesn’t support their conclusions that fear & post-justification are major issues.

& with statements like this (via Alternet):

“I do think there’s something to be said about people like Sarah Palin, and even more so Chuck Grassley, supporting this idea of death panels in a national forum,” Hoffman said.

Their biases are easily shown (DA post here sort-of-on death panels).

The simple truth is, the researchers and both articles are failing to reason correctly for the same reason the people they pointed out are failing to reason correctly:  they are seeing evidence which already proves their current world views and beliefs true.

& for whatever this data might show – it certainly isn’t proof of post-justification.  It is only evidence that we all seek out comfort by mitigating the cognitive dissonance (IE – anxiety) which comes from seeing factual information which disagrees with our world view & beliefs.

DA has written about this tendency on Junk Science, Anecdotal evidence in the health care debate & the President & Race.  Additionally, DA has written on echo chambers as they reinforce our thoughts.

With high levels of bipartisan anger, not only affecting elections, but affecting polls on the flagship legislation… er, I mean, the monstrous health care bill which no understands as well (here via WaPo):

…A CNN poll last week found that only 25 percent of Americans want Congress to pass a health-care bill similar to the one it has been working on for the past year, while 73 percent say Congress should either start from scratch or not pass health-care legislation at all (other polls show support for the bill in the low 40s). …

The White House is once again, on a media blitz to prove the administrations’ efficacy and job one is selling the idea the simulus worked.  While they have seemed keen enough to not discuss actual housing or job numbers, but instead spend time on nebulous items such as “saved jobs“, they are nonetheless telling us with great frequency what the stimulus did for us.

Vice President Joe Biden (here via ABC News):

Vice President Joe Biden said today that it is “taking a while” for the nation’s economy to “get out of this ditch” but credited the Obama Administration’s stimulus legislation, enacted one year ago, for laying a foundation for long-term economic growth. …

As well as President Obama himself (here via USA Today):

President Obama credits the one-year-old economic stimulus legislation with staving off a second depression …

The President even sent high level officials all over the country to prove the stimulus worked.  In one case, they used construction for residential housing to spotlight the great work the stimulus package has done for Cincinnati (here via Cincinnati.com).

With unemployment numbers continuing to rise (UE Rate for January 2010 10.6%)

& defaults on existing mortgages doing the same (here via Reuters):

…More than 8 percent of homeowners were behind 30 days or more on their mortgage loans, up 4.4 percent from December 2009 and 21 percent from last January…

& just like the last media blitz the White House went on to prove the stimulus was working (here via DA), they have spent approximately 34% of the money they claimed to need originally (here via ProPublica).  Combining the money spent and tax cuts approved listed on Recovery.gov they find:

…the government has now moved at least $272 billion into the economy, or 34 percent of the total amount approved by Congress last February….

So there you have it.  Successful stimulus program is now defined as a jobless, homeless, shaky recovery, for which the majority of the money requested has yet to have been spent.

• Proving once again that fascism isn’t just a word, Italy (here via Economist) gave three Google executives six-month suspended sentences for “allowing a clip of an autistic boy being bullied to be viewed on Google Video, which the judge said broke Italy’s privacy laws. “

Just to clarify, I’m not pro-autistic-bullying and would think a civil trial isn’t out of the question, but jail?

• Fannie Mae needs more cash, but just 15 billion… from the taxpayer of course (here via RTTN News).   Seems like people might not agree with this (here via WSJ):

The Obama administration’s decision to cover an unlimited amount of losses at the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next three years stirred controversy over the holiday….

Probably why the decision was made over the holidays.

• Crazy fundamentalists blame the Golden Girls for homosexuality (here via ChristWire).

• Democrats & President Obama, all firmly against the Patriot Act after signing it, vote to  prevent all measures from lapsing (here via Wired) for the next full year.

• Harvard intellectual tells us why allowing corporations to spend money on politics is bad (here):

…To understand why, it is important to focus on the individuals who make decisions for companies. When corporations decide which politicians to support, what kind of messages to send, and which political outcomes to seek, their general investors are not consulted. Rather, such decisions are likely to reflect the preferences and objectives of the insiders who manage the companies, ostensibly on shareholders’ behalf….

A little interlude for a thought experiment.  Change which politicians to support and which political outcomes to seek to which charities to support and which cultural outcomes to seek.  Or try reality and change it to, which lobbyists to support and which regulatory outcomes to seek.  But of course, he defines the problem for us:

…And politicians that benefit from corporate spending and access to corporate resources will have an interest in serving the insiders’ preferences and objectives….

Which presupposes politicians already don’t have this interest, presumes it will get much worse, and last, but not least; for spending to have any affect at all, voters have to be swayed to vote against their interests.

It seems the default assumption of every perceived risk these days is simply this:  there can never be too many laws when trying to protect people from themselves.

• CalTech researchers say the brain is wired for equality (here):

…Specifically, the team found that the reward centers in the human brain respond more strongly when a poor person receives a financial reward than when a rich person does. The surprising thing? This activity pattern holds true even if the brain being looked at is in the rich person’s head, rather than the poor person’s….

Oddly enough, the Freakanomics blog posted this with little comment (here) proving environmental factors such as working for the NY Times can affect even innovative economists.  I’ll admit there might be more, but from what they’ve shown, the results do not necessarily say anything about equality at all.  A perfectly reasonable answer is one of need: a rich person doesn’t need a windfall as much as a poor person.

CalTech’s reasoning:

…It’s long been known that we humans don’t like inequality, especially when it comes to money. Tell two people working the same job that their salaries are different, and there’s going to be trouble…

Conflating the thinking that comes with social status and worth when compared to colleagues and equality of results.  It could be in a lot of cases, the person making less might think they work harder and deserve more, not equal.

• & finally, via the Hill.  Did Nanci Pelosi really say that

…”They’ve had plenty of opportunity to make their voices heard,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning. “Bipartisanship is a two-way street. A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes. Republicans have left their imprint.”…

For  a little over a week now, political writers everywhere are telling us how the WH is going to aggressively work to change the narrative over health care & the stimulus.  This all began with a mea culpa from John Podesta last week when he admitted they [Democrats] have lost the narrative (here @ Politico):

John Podesta, the president of the Center for American Progress who led Barack Obama’s presidential transition, acknowledges the White House has been unable to successfully drive the debate on health care reform.

“They lost the narrative,” Podesta told the Financial Times. “They lost the perspective of how all of the activity they were engaged in was knit together.”…

This was followed up by pundits everywhere showing the signs of the WH’s pursuit of changing the current narrative (here @ WaPo):

…White House officials are retooling the administration’s communications strategy to produce faster responses to political adversaries, a more disciplined focus on President Obama’s call for “change” in Washington and an increasingly selective use of the president’s time…

[Dan Pfieffer Communications Director] “In 2010, the president will constantly be doing high-profile things to be the person driving the narrative.”

Continuing the Post reports something I think should be more controversial:

Senior White House aides described the changes as an aggressive response, aimed at producing fresh momentum for the president’s faltering agenda and regaining the advantage ahead of the congressional midterm elections in November.

I believe that’s an admission that the main reason they plan to change the topic at large and how that topic is described is for the mid-term-elections.  You’d think they could feign some empathy and argue that the policies are for the people, but instead they only discuss power.

But I digress… the main thing I think is important to see in all this discussion about narratives is two-fold.  They are coming out and honestly saying, the only reason we lost “the conversation” is because we didn’t sell it well enough.

& to be fair – it might well be true.  There are seemingly many more citizens willing to vote based on the narrative than they are willing to critically analyze the facts, therefore changing the way something is being sold will have some success.

But seriously – just because you have the opportunity to take candy from a baby, doesn’t mean that you should.  Meaning, if you can honestly argue that changing the narrative will push people to change their minds, you’re honestly arguing that winning is more about propaganda than ideas & facts.  & just like taking candy from a baby, just because you might be able to exploit people through emotional appeals, doesn’t mean you should do so.

What is more worrisome however, is the lack of reaction by people.  They read these things and mostly argue based on their political beliefs more than anything else.  & they do so, all without asking: what’s the difference between a narrative and the right policy?

Yes, what is worrisome is not only that people are ignoring this question, and thereby agree through silence, but that many of them may not even understand the difference.

In a very interesting post @ The Decision Science News, notes that:

There are those who consider the field of Judgment and Decision Making to be much like the field of Social Psychology, and others who find them as similar as vodka and water.

How can we, as the French say, préciser la différence?…

Using word analysis from two recent conferences, one from the SJDM (Scientific Journal of Decision Making) & the other done at the conference of SPSP (Society for Personality & Social Psychology) and noted the differences.

Now many should be able to logically recognize there are likely significant differences as well as assess some of the differences, all just with the names only.   These appear to be vastly different undertakings, but I think one can see in society behavior that seems to agree with the premise that many believe this to be closely related fields.

As one might suspect, the most used SPSP words were emotional and included using these words fairly often ups and downs, positives and negatives, attitudes, personalities & the SJDM words?  Choice, risk, future, uncertainty.

The full analysis easily digested and well worth the look.  After showing the most used words, using the scale of how many times each word was used per 1000 words, they plot both conferences words against each other.  IE – they show SJDM’s most used words and how many times those words were used by SPSP and vice versa.

The two commentators add weight to DSN’s premise that many are confused as both asked, “Why can’t it be both?”  Which might certainly be a noble thought, but ultimately wrong and dangerous when making critical decisions.

To begin, a disclaimer:  my intention is not to prove that emotions are evil.  Emotions are very important to our humanity, our culture, and our life.  Additionally, some decisions should include emotions, and not just in the mate selection process, but also just when buying a car or an engagement ring.  Money constraints might limit your choices, but you still don’t want to buy something you believe isn’t you.

What I see however in society is the desire of the posters, to make the best decisions possible, while still maintaining some nebulous idea of positivity, no matter what.

& again to be fair, this is itself a necessary goal if you are making group decisions consistently interacting with the same people.  However, it can never be an end in itself, and that seems to be where we are today.

You can see this in our leadership, both in business management as well as local, state, and federal government.  Their constant flip-flops belie any notion that a core set of beliefs is needed.  At times, these people seem to almost be arbitrarily making decisions.  For business, you can see this in constantly changing priorities as public winds shift.

All of this – is an anathema to critical thinking and analysis.  In a completely theoretical sense, using a specific slice of time, there is always a “best” decision.  This decision sometimes happens, but many times not only do groups fail to get the best decision, but seem to do just the opposite.   And this is true for many consistent reasons such as dealing with group dynamics and personalities.

Two recent examples @ Reason.com’s Blog by Tim Cavanaugh demonstrate not only shockingly bad decisions, but that those decisions have defenders.

Read here about a kid whose parents are suing the school district, because as owner of one of the 1900 laptops given to students, they didn’t seem to be aware that the school can at anytime remotely activate the built-in webcam and mic and secretly watch whatever it sees.  As the FBI investigates, the District Superintendent is still defending the policy as they cancel it.

& here as well, about a man named Terry Hoskins, who took a bunch of money from banks for a business which ultimately failed, used his private home as collateral, then when the bank went to foreclosure as freely agreed upon by Mr. Hoskins; he balked, then destroyed the home.  This is an event that should and will likely land Mr. Hoskins in jail on fraud.  He promised the bank the property, didn’t like the terms, the removed their ability to recoup.  The oddest thing isn’t a common thief in existence, it’s the fact he has supporters including local media.

From here all I can do is speculate as to why anyone would defend allowing the school district to spy on kids at home or hail as a hero a deadbeat who destroys property just to spite those who have ultimate rights to it because he didn’t pay his debt.

I say speculate, because more local analysis of the debates and media spots would be needed to know, but I think the school district is likely an extreme case of group think.  Likely exacerbated by administration pressures of some sort.  The debtor’s defenders however are more likely not only falling into group think, but projecting their anger on the current economic situation to this criminal’s seemingly anti-authoritarian behavior.

But regardless what the reasons for their failure in thinking, I think objectively we can say that those defending either action are wrong.  For the school – while states everywhere are sending kids to jail for child pornography because one 17 year old sends photos to another 17 year old – how would they ever believe that having the ability of spying into kids rooms wouldn’t increase the potential of breaking those laws themselves?  Do they not know that unreasonable search and seizure?

It’s really hard to believe that someone didn’t know about these things, just more likely the objections were either dismissed or never heard, due to emotionally imposed, nonexistent constraints.  While worrying about all these complex social issues, they failed to focus on exactly what they were doing through critical thought.

& this is where I think the idea of narratives working, the inability of people to understand true critical thinking requires removal of emotion, and people hailing bad decisions all stem from the same basic idea:  we so fear being uncomfortable or making others uncomfortable that we have weakened as a society in making the right decisions.

I’m not exactly sure when this cultural shift happened, but if we want to move forward in the best possible way we can; we must understand that sometimes people will be upset when they are challenged on beliefs for which there lies no logical foundation.  Additionally, sometimes telling people “negative” things, is in fact the best help you can give.  Your best friend might not like to hear if they are failing to meet up with their responsibilities, but they might need it.

I can dream though, right?  Dream that maybe, just maybe at a time in the future…. when the next administration is working to adjust the narrative and effecting elections through White House communication, the majority of people will simply ask, “Why the hell do I care about your narrative?  How about giving me the details of your proposals and I’ll decide on that?”

One day….

• Never before seen aerial photos of 9/11

I think they show much more in terms of scope than most pictures I’ve seen so far @ UK Telegraph.  Side note:  It should not have required FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) to release these.

• Interesting research in solar cells @ Scientific American, “researchers [led by Harry A. Atwater] at Caltech say they’ve designed a device that gets comparable solar absorption while using just one percent of the silicon per unit area that current solar cells need.”

• Despite calls for greater transparency as recent as the State of the Union speech, the Feds still refuse FOIA requests to show how stimulus money was spent.  @ The Conglomerate Now some may say the Fed isn’t the Whitehouse, but the law that was passed by both houses & signed by the President is the law in which the Feds are standing behind.  If this isn’t challenged successfully in court, then any government action could be completely hidden from the citizens just by pushing the leg work to an executive agency.

• Krugman…. proving once again the Nobel Peace Prize is worth far less than imagined. Author Tim Cavanaugh via Reason.com

• Short, 5 minute video discussing school choice versus governmental monopolies.  Isabel Santa via Cato.org

• John Stossel on our politicians using European social spending as the leading example (here), “Europe does have a bigger “social safety net.”  But the gain comes with pain: Europe’s higher taxes and bigger government lead to slower job growth and higher unemployment. Politicians always claim that the safety-net will be limited to “necessities for the truly needy,” but such government programs always grow.”

• Greg Mackinaw show how President Obama’s agenda, grossly misnamed “A New Era of Responsibility”, will saddle US citizens with continuing and ever increasing deficits.  This is according to the administration very own numbers.  via NY Times proving once again that when a politician names a bill, the probability of the bill doing the exact opposite of its authors’ claims is directly proportional to how much the title of said bill attempts to imply those same claims.

Typically I’m not in favor of pointing out hypocrisy to serve as proof of any specific individual fault.  Two main reasons, most people are hypocritical on some level; meaning they do things they would advise others against.  Secondly, sometimes those things labeled as hypocrisy are nothing more than changing opinions with changes in time, facts, or understanding.

But sometimes… it’s just too easy.

Senator Harkin writing about the need to change filibuster procedures in the Senate in order to make it easier to stop one.  At the Huffinton post (whole thing here):

…the unprecedented abuse of the filibuster by Republicans is no joke.

…The problem is not only that Republicans are using the filibuster to kill good bills that would help working Americans. The larger problem is that the Republicans’ indiscriminate use of the filibuster has made it all but impossible to conduct everyday business in the Senate. On an almost daily basis, the Republican minority — just 41 Senators — stops bills from even coming to the floor for debate and amendment.

…The Senate cannot continue down this path of obstruction, paralysis, and de facto minority rule. That is why I have introduced a bill to change the Standing Rules of the Senate to reform the cloture procedure in the United States Senate…

& the almost perfect statement from Mr. Harkin, his insistence on his consistency:

….I want to emphasize that I am offering this bill with clean hands. I introduced the exact same bill in 1995, when Democrats were in the minority in the Senate. So this legislation is not about one party or the other gaining advantage. It is about the Senate, as an institution, operating more fairly, effectively, and small-d democratically….

As I read this I thought…. it seems the parties have changed sides once again as I recall Republicans trying to do this during the Bush years.  & after about an entire 30 second search (more than either the Huffington Post or Mr. Harkin can do) I found this great quote when the Republicans were attempting similar things (NY Times, 2005):

…Democrats asserted one after another today that the Republican leadership’s attempt to bypass the filibuster – a procedural obstacle that requires 60 of the Senate’s 100 votes to overcome – is an attempt to change two centuries of Senate tradition. To do so, said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, would be “the end of the Senate as we know it” because it would dash the protections that the Senate has always afforded lawmakers in the minority and, by extension, their constituents….

So apparently, we have, according him, he was for filibuster reform in 1995, against it in 2005, and for it in 2010.

& for consistency sake, there is very likely a Republican doing similar flips.  President Obama spoke about the anger the public had at, not just individual parties or individual politicians, but at politics in general.  Back room deals, lying for political expediency, et, etc, etc.

Of course he went on in his State of the Union speech to claim another reason people are angry: that the government doesn’t work for the people.  It should be faster, more efficient, and more responsive to the people’s needs.

Funny thing though, this is exactly why the filibuster is needed, exactly what it is intended for, and exactly why Mr. Harkin & Mr. Obama are both wrong.

Among other reasons, historically the most “efficient” governments, are among the most oppressive.  We no longer seem to understand this as a society, but those governments able to move quickly are more apt to make bad decisions.  Since government is composed of humans, it has the same tendencies which humans have.  One of those tendencies is that our first, quick answer, on complex questions is usually wrong.

Which is perfectly ok – when only become successful, through our failures.  Due to the government’s power however, even short term failures can result in very long term negative consequences.

Therefore, we have a government designed to be deliberative versus efficient.  One way through separation of powers – where each branch has the power to prevent the other to act.  This by itself prevents too much impetuousness.

The filibuster, is not specifically Constitutional, as the Constitution only provided that each body could set their own rules through a majority vote.   However, filibuster rules were adopted  in the House near the very founding of that body and then adopted by Senate some years later.

& for me – they seem to follow a very logical understanding of both governments and human tendencies.  Not only that, but the filibuster also reinforces the fact that we are not and never have been a direct democracy.  Tyranny by the majority is still tyranny and if, hypothetically, lots of Senators or Congressmen wish to take away my rights, I’ll be grateful for just one to stand up and try to obstruct as much as possible.  If nothing else, draw attention to it and delay it long enough to get citizens engaged.

For me though – two times in my life the government has supposedly “shut down” & I was always happy.  The things they said would happen, mass chaos because no social security checks or military pay (I was in the military during one shut down) never happened.   The only thing I was sure of, was the government wasn’t making more laws and overall that’s likely to be a good thing.

Sometimes a more interesting way to find out how people truly view the world, is not to have them tell you where they stand on certain issues.  Another informative way to analyze someone’s critical thinking skills is how reflexive they are to disbelieve facts that counter their world view or agree with facts which confirms their world view.

Seeing their reactions to overly simplified answers which not only confirms their world view, but also their ego, you can use it to analyze that person’s tendency towards confirmation bias.

Before going further, a general disclaimer:  we all, every human falls for confirmation bias.  We want an ordered world and want to understand things and want to be right.  So patterns of random events become, after the fact of course, a series of events who destiny is their present state.

However, for those claiming to know more, claiming to impart important information to the masses, the truth as they see it – for those people, confirmation bias shouldn’t be as obvious.

For our example of people who lack critical thinking skills this time, we have Marcella Mroczkowski, a self described lawyer, activist, and Huffington Post Citizen Journalist.

Now I know – looking for critical thinking on a site like the Huffington Post is much more difficult than finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, but I still thinks it’s useful to remind us all of the tendency.

In her February 9th piece titled Why Americans Must Defeat the Right’s Culture of Hate: Understanding the Science And History of Demonizing Hate gives you a pretty good idea of her logical consistency, but for some reason, I read further.   To save you the trouble, I’ll summarize:

Using one poll, which she claims proves a large, but minority, percentage of Republicans are prone to believe things like Obama isn’t a natural citizen.  From there, she lumps the birther movement in with those who believe Barack is a socialist.  Tie that to the freedom-increasing destruction of the Fairness Doctrine, or in her parlance, the end of untainted free press and equality and an increase in corporate slavery.

Tie that to talk radio, through it, use nominal facts like people tend to get more fanatic during recessions and hate is a primal emotion.

Jump from there to leaders who can exploit man’s primal tendency to hate others through dehumanzing, such as Hitler!

& viola – people who don’t believe like Marcella are not just Republicans, but hate filled Republicans who are being exploited by Hitler’s reincarnation.

So with that said, I think objectively we can say that if this sample is her normal standards, then Ms. Mroczkowski’s skills in critical thinking are demonstrably lacking. We can also say, again, assuming this piece of hers is representative of her other writing & analysis, but with that assumption, she’s also a little full of herself.  Narcissistic even.

I mean even I try to assume the role of her – try to think, a liberal would agree – what do they see worth agreeing to?  Her non-familiarity with logic becomes apparent, as even if I agree with all her logical leaps, to believe the underlying assumption that her beliefs are perfectly right and her opponents are evil and full of hate is just too perfect to be believed by any nominally objective person.

I mean seriously – when the snake oil is packaged and marketed that it will grow your hair while shrinking your waistline and increasing your cognitive abilities – critical adults are naturally and rightfully and forcefully skeptical.

Or as others have said before, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence… or at least should for those pretending to provide “truthful” claims.

The interesting thing however is the polling data itself.  The data she uses to springboard her attempts to conflate Republicans and their mouth pieces with evil hate speech, is completely flawed.   First, it comes from Daily Kos, which should be an obvious sign to anyone approaching or attempting to approach objectivity.  They have an obvious bias and a quick check on their facts demonstrates it.

With simple math, we can take DailyKos’s own figures, 2008 voting records, and see if the percentages of respondents coincide with the actual percentages in the last election.

So in those states they label the NE, in the 2008 Presidential election, a total of 28,836,059 were cast for President, roughly 40% for McCain, or 11,458,616.

Those 11 million votes for McCain in that region, were out of the 59,948,240 votes cast for him nationally.  So the 11 million represents 19% of the total republican vote.  Not exactly a perfect measure of the percentage of Republicans living in the NorthEast, but likely more accurate than DailyKos’s attempts to minimize that part of country’s respondents to only 11%.  & my numbers were also two years ago – I think one can objectively say the Democrats aren’t doing as well as they could be and are in less favor now that prior to the election.

Regardless, they not only undervalue the opinions of those Republicans in the NE, but they also exaggerate the weight of the south, giving them 42% of the weight of the poll questions, whereas using the same basic analysis, those same states only made up 36% of the total Republican vote cast for McCain.

There are other signs in there as well, but ones I didn’t feel like researching… but to the eye, I’m not sure if 89% should be white or that 56% should be men, though I’ll admit both might be possible.  Using a full 70% of respondents aged 45 and up however, defies logic.  A cursory glance shows voter registration for that age group making up a little less than 50% of all registered voters and while I’ll be more than happy to concede the idea that the makeup of the Republican party isn’t a complete demographic mirror of the national population, I’m pretty sure we can safely say the 70% is exaggerated as well.

With all the inconsistencies, it’s hard to even subscribe to a benign notion such as incompetence.  It appears much more likely that they moved the numbers around until they could get results which showed what they wanted.

Of course to normal people, hearing or reading “A poll from the Daily Kos showed….” could be followed by “the Earth is round” and be right to be skeptical.

Using that poll as evidence of something however is another story entirely.  Here again, I’d like to think this is an innocent mistake, but I think hiding the poll through another link (she linked to Huffington Post site which discuss the poll, which linked to the poll), picking only two questions out of the litany asked and acted as if the rest of it was overwhelmingly convincing of her basic point, then logically stumbling about to equate Republicans with hateful, primitive thinkers who are just following Hitler’s rise to power…. well, that might say more about her motives than even her reflexive belief.

The problem is that only slightly off people like me will dig around for all those numbers to prove or disprove our assumptions.  & that percentage of people currently testing their assumptions versus those voting… well, let’s just say it’s probably pretty small.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that mind you – our marketplace of ideas is full of different people with different opinions and tripe like this will always be seen by objective people for the hollow and shallow self-confirmation it truly is.

The only real sad part is some people, probably more than I want to admit to, will read and blindingly believe.  Not because they don’t have an extra hour to research voting numbers and compare then to polling – they will believe it for the same reason it was written – it will confirm something for which they already believe.  Republicans are primitive & evil.

Yep, using a big dose of self-delusion for courage, they will believe completely in such a hateful point, without even noticing the hateful point is being stated in an article decrying hate.

Over @ The Economist a little while back, they added a debate section.  Every week or two, the pick an assertion others might find interesting, have a moderator, along with a pro & con, guest writers and voting tallies which change over time.

As you can imagine, finding interesting things to debate on a consistent basis isn’t the easiest thing, but some of the questions seem a little silly.  For instance, Women:  This house believes that women in the developed world have never had it so good.

The good news is that 64% of respondents can readily agree that women are better off now than they were 200 years ago.  Conversely, the idea 36% of respondents are so singularly focused on an idea of equality that is impractical and impossible given that humans are different from each other.

I will begrudgingly admit, those in the “women don’t have it better” category are a little more nuanced, as they argue that they haven’t shared equally in the freedoms of men, therefore…. and here’s where I get lost, but apparently the conclusion is…. because of this we can plausibly argue against a simple statement that women have it better today than yesterday.

Either way, I’ve written about a couple of their debates on Chinese leadership with respect to the environment and the nanny states move to ban food.

The most recent debate however is very interesting and not because of the logically leaps some are making to defend their position.  It’s interesting that the Economist, a pro-free market magazine, is hosting a debate which has their readership closely divided.  The Motion:

Obama: This house believes that Barack Obama is failing.

I say interesting because while business magazines in general tend to lean conservative, the Economist endorsed both John Kerry & Barack Obama over their opponents.  On  Barack specifically, just four short months ago they wrote incorrectly in my opinion, how well Obama was doing with respect to foreign policy.

Secondarily, since 46% of their subscriber base is international (54% in North America), I would think the respondents tilt towards Obama would be more pronounced than it currently stands @ 46% agree Mr. Obama is failing, 54% disagree (rolling numbers so they could change).

Now to be fair, the Economist’s slant towards free market economics and pushes a lot of its news and analysis towards that.  For this, they can be fairly called right leaning on most issues.  It was pro-Iraq war, initially anyway, it’s free market stance made them endorse George Bush in 2000.

The respondents however seem to tend towards the liberal side, even though I think these facts point to the idea that their main base of membership probably lends conservative, at least economically so.

Irregardless – an interesting assertion is being debated – & with the pro-side written by David Boaz, Executive vice-president of the Cato Institute and the con-side written by Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government – very worthwhile reading as well.