AP writer Beth Harpaz worries that we are raising “a generation of nincompoops” because modern technology has obviated the need for kids to learn basic mechanical skills: Are we raising a generation of nincompoops? And do we have only ourselves to blame? Or are some of these things simply the result of kids growing up […]
Archive | Political Ignorance
Explaining Group Differences in Knowledge of Religion
As I noted in a recent post, the Pew Research Center survey of public knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics, Jews, and Mormons are the groups with by far the highest knowledge levels in this field. The disparity between these groups and the rest of the population persists even after controlling for education. […]
Public Ignorance About Religion
A Recent Pew Research Center survey of American’s knowledge about religion shows widespread ignorance. The study asked 32 mostly relatively basic multiple choice questions about various religions (including a few on religion and public life): On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s […]
Tony Blair on Political Ignorance
David Bernstein’s post referencing a commenter who greatly overestimates the extent to which the public pays attention to politics reminds me of an interesting comment on political ignorance from Tony Blair’s recently published memoir: The single hardest thing for a practising politician to understand is that most people, most of the time, don’t give politics […]
James Webb on Affirmative Action and Race
In his much-discussed recent Wall Street Journal op ed, Virginia Senator James Webb makes some good points about affirmative action and race, but also some key mistakes and omissions. On the plus side, Webb’s article highlights the contradictions between the “diversity” and compensatory justice rationales for affirmative action. He also correctly suggests that slavery and […]
Possible Data Fraud in Research 2000 Polls Commissioned by the Daily Kos
Markos Moulitsos of the Daily Kos website has recently revealed that there was probably large-scale data fraud in a series of polls that the Daily Kos commissioned from the Research 2000 polling firm: I have just published a report by three statistics wizards showing, quite convincingly, that the weekly Research 2000 State of the Nation […]
Two Thirds of Americans Cannot Name Even One Supreme Court Justice
A recent poll conducted by Findlaw shows that two thirds of Americans cannot name even one Supreme Court justice. Here are the percentages who can name each of the nine current justices [HT: Josh Blackman]: * Clarence Thomas – 19% * John Roberts – 16% * Sonia Sotomayor – 15% * Ruth Bader Ginsburg – […]
The Pew Survey Respondents Were Not Reacting to “Words Without Context”
In his response to my last post, Orin argues that some of the seemingly anomalous reactions of respondents to the Pew survey I analyzed might have been the result of the fact that the researchers asked them to react to “words without context” rather than “ideologies” or political ideas. I highly doubt this accounts for […]
Political Ignorance and Perceptions of “Capitalism” and “Socialism”
This recent Pew survey has some interesting data on public opinion regarding various political and economic ideas, including “capitalism” and “socialism.” To me, the result that stood out the most was this one: Perhaps surprisingly, opinions about the terms “socialism” and “capitalism” are not correlated with each other. Most of those who have a positive […]
Ideology and Economic Ignorance
Co-blogger Todd Zywicki links an interesting article by Zeljka Buturovic and Dan Klein showing that certain forms of economic ignorance are more common among self-described “progressives” and “liberals.” These findings are very valuable. But they are subject to several caveats. First, as Buturovic and Klein themselves point out, the Zogby survey they relied didn’t ask […]
Does the Supposedly Superior Expertise of Regulators Justify Libertarian Paternalism?
By Ilya Somin on April 19, 2010 9:56 pm in Libertarian Paternalism, Paternalism, Political Ignorance, Public Choice, Uncategorized
Some of the commenters on my last two posts criticizing libertarian paternalism accuse me of ignoring the possibility that such paternalism is justified by the supposedly superior expertise of government regulators. Actually, I have addressed this point in several previous posts, such as here and here. However, readers can’t be blamed for not taking the […]
The Double Standard of Libertarian Paternalism
By Ilya Somin on April 15, 2010 12:35 am in Libertarian Paternalism, Libertarianism, Paternalism, Political Ignorance
Cato Unbound has an excellent symposium on “libertarian paternalism,” the theory that argues that government should intervene to protect people against cognitive biases that lead them to make decisions that ultimately reduce their ability to achieve their own objectives. Advocates of libertarian paternalism argue that their approach is different from and superior to traditional paternalism, […]
The Stupak Conundrum: Why Did the Stupakites Change Their Positions on the Health Care Bill in Exchange for a Meaningless Executive Order?
The House of Representatives just passed the health reform bill previously enacted by the Senate by a narrow 219-212 vote. They probably could not have done without the support of eight to nine Democratic pro-life congressmen led by Representative Bart Stupak, who agreed to support the bill just before the vote in exchange for an […]
Democracy and the Appeal of Socialism
Economist Bryan Caplan wonders why socialism ever developed any broad appeal, given the weaknesses of the idea of the “New Socialist Man”: The classic argument against socialism is that it gives people bad incentives. What’s the point of working, conserving, saving, quality control, and/or taking out the garbage if they don’t pay? The classic socialist […]
Could National Juries Alleviate the Problem of Political Ignorance?
One of the most serious defects of modern democracy is that most voters know very little about the policies they vote on. Moreover, as I have pointed out on previous occasions, it is rational for them to remain ignorant and to do a poor job of evaluating what limited political information they do know. Political […]