tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35248477.post3376834912345147013..comments2024-03-27T14:20:05.905-04:00Comments on Montclair SocioBlog: Politics – Means and EndsJay Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06652075579940313964noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35248477.post-52788032696426332672011-06-09T10:07:46.301-04:002011-06-09T10:07:46.301-04:00Agreed. I'm sure that part of the shift is re...Agreed. I'm sure that part of the shift is regression to the mean. But my other point was that this regression is very anti-intuitive when applied to opinions and ideas. So imposing a narrative is all the more tempting. (An even clearer example is the "analysis" of the daily stock market report, which usually anthropomorphizes the market and then makes up an explanation for what the market was thinking about.) <br /><br />If I were more energetic, I would have looked at past elections in those states to get some idea of that the means were. Don't political scientists do this sort of stuff?Jay Livingstonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06652075579940313964noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35248477.post-86579280370403330822011-06-09T09:46:20.414-04:002011-06-09T09:46:20.414-04:00First, I agree with you that there is a substantiv...First, I agree with you that there is a substantive backlash phenomena that is bigger than just regression to the mean. <br /><br />Nonetheless, I think regression to the mean is part of this, and more to the point I think that just because we can tell a substantive story about something doesn't mean that it's not also probabilistic. In some cases the substantive processes can add up to emergent probability. This is why sociologists have a hard time understanding simulations --- we tend to want to tell substantive stories rather than just seeing them as approximated by noise.<br /><br />This XKCD comic pretty much sums up my view of the world<br />http://xkcd.com/904/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com