Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Science Results Are Telling

Sorry, I'm late... sick child and all that. :( Anyhoo, I've told you before that I always look for confirmation of social trends in places other than direct studies. Basically, a study that asks "Are you stupid" won't give you a realistic answer because people tell you what they think you want to hear, but something like sales figures for a book titled "How To Hide Your Inner Stupid" will give us a better picture. Well, I ran into an interesting one this weekend which confirms several things we've discussed before. Observe.

The thingermerbob in question was a simple test given to 3,200 Americans. (You can take it here: LINK.) It asked a series of basic science questions from different fields. The end result was the average was a C. And that's been the headline everyone ran with, as if Americans are science illiterate. Oh brother. Look, yeah, people didn't do well, but these questions were essentially trivia as none of the information contained therein is useful to 99.999% of people. Nor do we have results for smug Euros, lazy South Americans, or sneaky Japs to compare us to. So how this can be a basis for condemning Americans is beyond me. Whatevs.

Anyways, the genuinely interesting information is the stuff the media won't touch. Consider these:

● Men scored one point higher than women. Why is this interesting? For the longest time now, we have been told by feminists that there is something wrong with the world because women do so much better in school than men (more go to college, more graduate, more get better grades) and yet men continue to hold the vast majority of management positions and continue to make more money. Must be sexism, right? Wrong.

The problem is that while women do indeed do better in school, it is clear that school grades do not translate directly into knowledge or ability as the feminists want them too. Indeed, we see that here. If school performance were a predictor of ability, then women should have beaten men handily. But they didn't. They got beat by a full point (8.3%). How can that happen? Well, I would suggest that this test measures the ability of men and women to remember what they were taught long ago AND/OR to work out a problem with which they are presented and about which they have limited knowledge. Hence, what this test result tells us is that while women are better students while they are in school, men retain their knowledge better and have better practical skills which let them work out problems. In other words, women are better at education-based skills like repeating lessons, but men are better at remembering the things they learn long term and at using their knowledge to solve problems outside of what they've been taught. That makes women better students, but men better employees. That would explain part of the gender gap in pay verses the reverse gender gap in education.

The other thing this highlights is that the gender gap is the result of choices men and women make. Indeed, the gender gap on this test goes away in biological science, which means that this is the one area of science where women are equal to men. That suggests the gender gap is about interest rather than ability. In other words, women find biological science more interesting or the jobs they choose keep those skills more fresh in their minds. Hence, they do better than they do in physical sciences, which don't interest women. What this means is that women are picking and choosing the skills they want to have, which is the real cause of the gender gap. Hence, there really is no gap in the sense of a lack of potential ability, there is a gender choice gap. This is confirmed in the real world where women flock to fields like K-12 education, counseling, and nursing, while men go into science, math, management and other more demanding and better paid fields.

● Whites again beat blacks and Hispanics. Why this matters is that once again, it shows that there really are two Americas. When you look at whites only, everything from the crime rate to infant mortality to education results reflect a society that exceeds even the best Europe has to offer. It is only when you add minorities that American results get dragged down to the middle of the European pack. As a policy wonk, this should tell us that our goal should be to raise minorities to the same level as whites and we should be looking for the causes of this race/ethnic difference. Unfortunately, that is considered "racist," so policy types are stuck recommending broad-based solutions for all races simultaneously when they should be targeting specific solutions to those who need it most.

● Democrats proved to be half a point stupider than Republicans. That's no surprise seeing as how the Democrats truly are the anti-science party. To tehm, science is a goodie box that can deliver magic on demand when demanded by people pure of heart and without a profit motive. Interestingly, the experts they consulted for the article are trying to dismiss this as being the result of minorities inhabiting the Democratic party... a point that would be racist if made about education or other statistic.

● Westerners scored highest, and Southerners did the worst. That doesn't surprise me in the least either. The West is very modern and packed with science companies. We're also pretty obsessed with education. The South is a mix of agrarian and manufacturing culture and has the worst schools in the country. It also suggests that places like New York and Massachusetts, which think of themselves as smarter than the rest of us may be fooling themselves.

● People with college degrees smoked high school grads, and people with postgraduate degrees did even better - they were the only group to score an A. I suspect this shows that those people value the collection and retention of information better than other groups and it shows that they have better problem solving abilities. All of that shows why those people tend to lose their jobs less often and get new jobs much quicker than people without education even though there are a great many more jobs for unskilled labor out there. Said differently, retaining education pays.

● Finally, the smartest group age-wise was people between 30 and 49. This makes sense too as that is the age group that has the strongest combination of (1) needing to use their brains every day so they can earn a living, (2) being fresh from their education years, but adding in some real world years, and (3) going through K-12 again as they raise kids. I wouldn't make much about that except to point out that this idea the Boomers seem to have of the rest of us as morons compared to their genius selves is again proven wrong. Boomers did the worst.

Thoughts?

26 comments:

BevfromNYC said...

"Whites again beat blacks and Hispanics...As a policy wonk, this should tell us that our goal should be to raise minorities to the same level as whites and we should be looking for the causes of this race/ethnic difference."

Of course it is the issue. But here is another issue that I always see even with this. Why aren't Asians ever included?? They are a formidable minority population who outdo Whites statistically in Math and Science.

And it works the other way too. When the race baiters start using test scores for black and Hispanic students as "the downtrodden segregated minorities" who are underfunded and have the worst teachers and who are the poorest, they too leave out the Asians as part of that minority of poor downtrodden minorities. But then there is a reason...Asians skew the test scores.

So Asians are left out because they dispel the myth that it is poverty or lack of funds that keeps students from learning. It is the community, the parents and commitment to education. Btw, Asian teenagers have the lowest rate of crime and teenage pregnancy too.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, That's exactly right. The problem with Asians from the left's perspective is that they blow up the whole story. The story is that the reason minorities (blacks in particular) do worse than white is white racism. But how does that make sense then if Asians do better than whites? Are they a superior race who have simply outfoxed us whites? And if so, then why don't blacks just follow their example? Or is it possible that whites are oppressive racists after all?

I've seen some black intellectuals try to explain this away by saying that whites like Asians for some reason, but just don't like blacks. Ok, but why do we use our magic powers to give them better test scores than our own kids? Also, if we like them so much, then why did they face massive discrimination after building the railroads? Why did we intern the Japanese? Why did we go to war in Vietnam and Korean? Why are we hostile to China now?

It doesn't make sense. That's the problem... it blows the whole idea out of the water. Hence, they act like there are no Asians.

BevfromNYC said...

So I took this little test. And they come up with all of these conclusions with 10 questions of varying scientific merit taken by only people who are interested. How do they verify the race, gender, and location of the participants?

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, It does seems to be a short test to come up with anything too conclusive.

When I took it, there were 12 questions. In terms of knowing who you are, I think they asked when they originally did the test, but then stopped asking once the published their conclusions.

BevfromNYC said...

Andrew - they only asked my gender - sexists.

tryanmax said...

When it comes to reporting on Silicon Valley, the left does worse than ignore Asians, they flat out say Asians don't count. As in, Silicon Valley is trying to hide its diversity problem by hiring Asians. It's ridiculous.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Sexist indeed! LOL!

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, I've seen similar behavior in other areas too. Not only do Asians not count, but they are often dismissed with disdain by the race lobby. In California, they were actually pushing for anti-Asian quotas in the 1990s because there were "too many" of them in the best colleges.

Kit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kit said...

"In California, they were actually pushing for anti-Asian quotas in the 1990s because there were "too many" of them in the best colleges."

Like this?

BevfromNYC said...

Actually there is pending lawsuit against Harvard filed by group of Asian student alleging quotas in enrollment. It mirrors the same kind of lawsuit that was filed in the '50's or '60's by Jewish students.

BevfromNYC said...

Btw, is anyone watching the debate tonight? I don't get CNN...8-(

Critch said...

I scored a 100%, so us Irish did pretty well.....

BevfromNYC said...

OT: Holy {expletive} this was at the HS i graduated from! Poor kid...
http://gizmodo.com/this-teenager-was-arrested-for-making-a-clock-his-teach-1730977157

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, I got 11 out of 12. :)

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, Yes, exactly.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Isn't that amazingly stupid?

BevfromNYC said...

I got 10 out of 12...but then I'm a stupid girl. Frankly, I don't care what kind of waves make my cellphone work, I just care that it works...so there!

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, LOL! Somehow, I think you blew away most everyone else who took the test.

I missed the one about the waves and a magnifying glass. I had it backwards.

BevfromNYC said...

That was the other one I missed. I missed the magnifying glass thing too! I thought a "magnifying glass" made things bigger! Stupid me...

AndrewPrice said...

I had the same thought! LOL!

BevfromNYC said...

Andrew, that must mean you're no better than girl! LOL!!

AndrewPrice said...

Oooh, that's below the belt, Bev! ;-)

BevfromNYC said...

Oops,..sorry, but internet quizzes dont' lie! 8-D

Koshcat said...

The other problem is many of these things can be somewhat esoteric. If you are a lawyer, is it critical to your existence and work to know that the earth's core is hotter than the mantel? Also, what does a question about astrology have anything to do with science? Silly quiz. What bothers me is how ignorant people are reading infectious diseases. Some of the same people who freaked out about Ebola seem to poo-poo measles or influenza.

AndrewPrice said...

Koshcat, I think the astrology/astronomy question was to see if people recognized the science or if they thought the voodoo was the science.

I agree about the infectious diseases stuff. There is an intense amount of ignorance out there right now being pushed as if it were science, and it's going to hurt a lot of people.

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