Much more data, please. |
After my last post
(a couple of weeks ago, I know), there was some discussion both via email and
in my house about the “hidden causality” of the question in question, mainly:
“Do you think the stock market has gone up
or down since Barack Obama became President?”
Now to me, there was no “causality” either stated or
implied. The word “since” was an operand
for a time stamp: “As of this date, did
the stock market…etc.” Because the
question had the magic two words (Barack Obama), people may have
interpreted it as “Did Barack Obama cause the market to go up or down,” but
that’s obviously incorrect.
What if researchers had asked if the Japanese NIKKEI average
had gone up or down since Obama took office?
No doubt many more responses would have tried to ascertain up or down
versus “no clue.” If respondents had
been asked if the stock market was up or down since the Philadelphia Phillies
last won the World Series (2008), again, you’d get a much different result than
using Obama as the date stamp.
Because humans have issues with causality.
We don’t like gaps in our thinking. Everything has to have a reason for
happening, and when we don’t know the reason, we make shit up. Seriously.
It pains us to “not know,” so we come up with the damnest rationales for
things, and the more serious the issue, the more outrageous the rationale. So it seems.
- Folks getting sick or
dying in droves – must be the work of the devil.
(oh, it’s because of germs? OK). - Hurricanes and tornadoes –
must be the work of climatic disturbances.
(oh, it’s because you still allow abortion and gays to marry? OK).
Wait a minute…
Yeah, we still do dumb shit like that. In the 21st Century.
The human brain doesn’t like gaps and works hard to fill
them. It’s a shame we don’t follow that
method; instead, we look for easy answers that might not make a bit of sense
logically or scientifically, but soothes us because it feeds our biases and
prejudices.
A lot has been written about the confusion with causality
and correlation. Just because two things
seem to “correlate” does not infer causality.
See this link
for some fun ones, but the one I used to teach in my marketing research class
dealt with motorcycles and mustaches. It’s
a fact that if you have a motorcycle, you are more likely to have facial hair
(a mustache, at least…sometimes a mustache and beard). Conversely, if you have a mustache, you are
more likely to own a motorcycle. But
does having facial hair CAUSE you to buy a motorcycle? Does owning a cycle CAUSE more hair to grow
on your chin?
They may be correlated, but there is no causality.
The same could be said for our original discussion of a
President’s “effect” on the stock market…or gas prices, or a number of things
where a complex set of economic and environmental factors are in play. And yet, people feel qualified (or justified
or whatever word you’d like to toss in there) to opine as to why this or that
happened.
Even when they get it exactly wrong. And that’s scary.
And on that note I will make a comment about opinions and
comments on a subject that has been “in
the news” in the poker world just prior to the start of the WSOP, and that is
the sexual harassment and racism allegations
of Dr. Jaclynn Moskow stemming from a 2014
appearance on Poker Night in America.
I only know one of the parties involved (Nolan Dalla) and for not that
long. I do not know how others know of
Dr. Moskow or Mr. Dalla or any of the others mentioned or involved; for how
long, how well, etc.
What
I do know is that I have read a LOT of opinion on the subject. I am amazed, because many of these opinions
begin with phrases like, “I was not there, but…” This is both for opinions of support on both
sides. One write up even had this
summary phrase, that opinions were based on the “perception of the events rather than direct
evidence.”
Yes, opinions are like assholes, I know the joke. Still, people are using “perception of the
events rather than direct evidence” for their rationale. That REALLY scares me.
I don’t know what happened, and sexual harassment (any
harassment) is bad, and the poker world has some unusual quirks (and quirky
people), and yet…I was not there, so I could not feel qualified to make ANY judgment
or opinion on this event. And yet many
others have no such qualms.
Here’s an experiment:
next time you have shooting pains, or bad cramps, or some illness or
discomfort, go to your health care specialist and ask them for an opinion…based
on the perception of the events rather
than direct evidence.
Let me know how that works out for you.
In the meantime, use your head and think logically, and if
you don’t know, either (a) find out for sure, or (b) keep quiet.
Thank you. I've been shouting in the wilderness that until and unless we hear a full explanation with supporting documentation we have absolutely nothing upon which to draw a conclusion. Right, wrong or indifferent the people that know what happened haven't been heard from...yet.
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