Twitter roundup

From my Twitter feed (7/5-7/12) Brendan Nyhan Jul 12, 2011 at 1:22 PM
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	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan .@jonathanchait says Obama is about as strong as Clinton was at this point, but pers. income growth=3% Clinton, 1% Obama http://j.mp/npOEFf
	Checking In On Old Friends | The New Republic I've been taking a bit of a vacation from enjoying the comic stylings of Peter Wehner, but I decided to check in on the former Bush administration Minister of Propaganda to see if he was still s...
	Jul 12, 2011 at 1:05 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan The climate change divide is driven by values, not scientific literacy http://j.mp/qGkhIi
	Mooney on Kahan on Skeptics | Climate Etc. Chris Mooney has a new post up entitled "A little knowledge: why the biggest problem with climate skeptics may be their confidence." Mooney's post responds to Kahan et al.'s new study entitled "...
	Jul 12, 2011 at 12:49 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Via @jonathanchait, a horrifying anecdote about a man who tries to cash a check and ends up losing almost everything http://j.mp/p3X0j5
	Man Jailed For Cashing Check | The New Republic This horrific story offers a window into the reality of life for low socioeconomic status minorities: Something like this would never happen to me. I'm white, which makes me far less likely to b...
	Jul 12, 2011 at 1:31 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan NYT Newsmax profile http://j.mp/oByJes goes easy on the pub's often outlandish content - see eg http://j.mp/mUiGKo http://j.mp/nhPbFj
	Newsmax, a Compass for Conservative Politics - NYTimes.com Newsmax has become a potent force by offering what its chief executive calls “news that Americans in the heartland would like to see.”
	newsmax site:spinsanity.org - Google Search
	Search Results: NewsMax.com | Media Matters for America
	Jul 11, 2011 at 1:23 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Recommended: @jbplainblog on how $ undercuts minority party's incentive to compromise http://j.mp/nZCcsN (I would add primaries)
	A plain blog about politics: Not a Normal Party Nate Silver says that the GOP reluctance to compromise is driven by voter alignments . John Sides has a good post up responding, in which he points to the strong conservativism of GOP activists ...
	Jul 11, 2011 at 12:27 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @SteveKornacki: Matt Bai says messaging is why Christie got Dem votes for his agenda in NJ leg. nyti.ms/qvqKly He's wrong: bit.ly/loBEoP
	Jul 11, 2011 at 12:24 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Excited about David Brooks's newfound love for social science, but he needs a grad student to help with the popularizing http://j.mp/qoxvSL
	Does Nudging Explain Differences in Organ Donation Rates? — The Monkey Cage It's great that David Brooks is taking to the NYT to defend NSF funding for the social sciences. This is not the kind of cause that NYT op-ed writers usually take up. Even so, one of the example...
	Jul 11, 2011 at 1:27 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan You too can hang out with Newt! MT @kohenari: Things Political Scientists Like: Google+ Hangouts with 2012 Pres. Cands: http://t.co/Y55b2wi
	Running Chicken: Things Political Scientists Like: Google+ Hangouts... Things Political Scientists Like: Google+ Hangouts with 2012 Presidential Candidates. I just chatted with Newt Gingrich for a few minutes about Thucydides and Greek democracy, since he asked wha...
	Jul 9, 2011 at 3:39 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @afrakt: Brilliantly simple. RT @kdrum: All of Modern Politics in One Chart http://t.co/FE1553S
	All of Modern Politics in One Chart Via YouGov, here is all of modern American politics explained in a single handy chart. Enjoy. Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Get Kevin D...
	Jul 9, 2011 at 3:37 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @betsylevyp: Great social network influence paper: paying ppl to work out. Does it affect their friends? http://t.co/AFcJlkU (PDF)
	http://econ.ucsb.edu/~babcock/ NetworksWorkouts_11_2010.pdf
	Jul 8, 2011 at 1:46 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @asymmetricinfo: Every month seems to validate the Rogoff and Reinhart theory that recovery from financial crisis is sloooooooooooooooow.
	Jul 8, 2011 at 1:11 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan John Sides responds to @fivethirtyeight - GOP moves are driven by activists/elites more than voters http://j.mp/qW4pz3
	Are Republican Voters to Blame for GOP Intransigence on the Budget? — The Monkey Cage Nate Silver answers this question in the affirmative: He shows that, among voters who voted for a Republican House candidate, the percentage who were conservative increased from 58% in 2008 to 6...
	Jul 7, 2011 at 7:51 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan The dissemination of Heritage talking points for #AskObama to politicians, interest groups, etc. http://j.mp/o4SJqx (via @jbplainblog)
	How Republicans and Tea Partiers Alike Used the Heritage Foundation's #AskObama Script Yesterday, President Obama held a live chat session on Twitter. Billed as a "townhall," the President spent an hour fielding questions from Twitter users about the state of the nation. It was a ...
	Jul 7, 2011 at 7:40 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan More on polarization and the US role in the domestic and global economy from @mattyglesias http://j.mp/nn4WId
	Historical Perspective On Polarization Brendan Nyhan brings some historical perspective on partisan polarization in the United States: The post-World War II economic system was built around the US economy at a time when partisan pola...
	Jul 7, 2011 at 7:19 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Emory political scientist Alan Abramowitz: "Setting the Record Straight: Correcting Myths about Independent Voters" http://j.mp/onXNBg
	Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » Setting the Record Straight: Correcting Myths about Independent Voters Alan I. Abramowitz, Senior Columnist July 7th, 2011 There they go again. The presidential campaign season is barely under way but already pundits and pollsters are making misleading claims about...
	Jul 7, 2011 at 2:51 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Reminder: No relationship between spending cuts and re-election vote, strong relationship with econ. growth http://j.mp/9mfQbX
	The magical thinking of Fred Barnes - Brendan Nyhan Updated below with more details on Clinton's win in 1996] I take it as a given that most journalists know very little about political science. But I still assumed that almost everyone has a basi...
	Jul 7, 2011 at 1:20 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @jbouie: If the only option you have for changing the political calculations of a president is protest, you're probably too late.
	Jul 7, 2011 at 12:59 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @vaughanbell: Gay profs perceived as politically biased based on same syllabus as straight profs http://t.co/fReGesl via @kfranklinphd
	News: Whose Agenda? - Inside Higher Ed Do gay and lesbian professors face discrimination from students? A new study -- just published in The Journal of Applied Social Psychology -- suggests that they do, with regard to perceptions of...
	Jul 7, 2011 at 12:33 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @hardsci: Persuade, don't scold RT @PsychScience: Ironic effects of anti-prejudice messages http://t.co/qmNqdv5
	Ironic Effects of Anti-Prejudice Messages - Association for Psychological Science Organizations and programs have been set up all over the globe in the hopes of urging people to end prejudice. According to a research article, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Ps...
	Jul 6, 2011 at 7:06 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan New health myth-busting book by @aaronecarroll of @incidentalecon: Don’t Cross Your Eyes… They’ll Get Stuck That Way! http://j.mp/oqKtem
	Don’t Cross Your Eyes… They’ll Get Stuck That Way! | The Incidental Economist It's no secret we're partial to evidence and data on this blog. We think it makes for better informed, and better functioning, health policy. But research has so many uses. It can be used to dis...
	Jul 6, 2011 at 4:21 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan One of my favorite journalistic tropes - the demand for stronger adjectives. Aren't you outraged? Incensed? Appalled? http://j.mp/n0j5n7
	Spending Cuts and Fast & Furious: Today’s Q’s for O’s WH – 7/5/2011 - Political Punch TAPPER: Some Republicans on the Hill say that some of the spin coming from the White House is inaccurate; that the White House and Democrats have not signed off to trillions of dollars in spendi...
	Jul 6, 2011 at 12:24 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Amusing post from @jonathanchait about Jake Tapper's demand for stronger adjectives from the White House http://j.mp/qyQKx3
	You Wouldn't Like Obama When He's Not Angry | The New Republic As Brendan Nyhan notes, one of the great journalistic tropes is demanding that public figures use stronger adjectives to describe their position. It's an odd mission. Here's Jake Tapper intervie...
	Jul 6, 2011 at 4:22 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @DKThomp: Frank Rich is wrong. Obama's biggest problem isnt Wall Street's rebirth, but the death of jobs. And they're separate. http://bit.ly/kMYkVN
	Did Obama's Failure to Stand Up to Wall Street Doom the Recovery? The president couldn't jump-start job creation. He's also perceived as not standing up against "moneyed interests" on Wall Street. But one has little to do with the other. Columnists occasionall...
	Jul 6, 2011 at 2:29 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan RT @RyanLizza: Perspective on UNH poll (Romney 35, Bachmann 12, Paul 7, Giuliani 7, TPaw 3): 7/07 UNH poll: Romney 34, Giuliani 20, Thompson 13, McCain 12.
	Jul 6, 2011 at 12:06 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Counterfactuals are a hard sell MT@ezraklein How stimulus could've worked even if too small and unemployment is high http://t.co/j7SS7FI
	Could the stimulus have been bigger, cont’d - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post Whenever you talk about counterfactual versions of the 2009 stimulus bill, you end up with some version of the same response: The stimulus failed - after all, look how high unemployment is! - an...
	Jul 6, 2011 at 12:06 AM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan An interview by @CJR's @GregAMarx with Hans Noel (aka @Student) on "How to Understand the 'Invisible Primary'" http://j.mp/lAysNo
	How to Understand the ‘Invisible Primary’ The 2012 Iowa caucuses are still seven months away, but Republican presidential hopefuls are already well into the "invisible primary"-a tumultuous time of speechmaking, fundraising, coalition-b...
	Jul 5, 2011 at 7:11 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan New Slate article on ongoing social contagion debate including my work with @Student http://j.mp/lYQGtu Our paper: http://j.mp/lmtLkb (PDF)
	Social contagions debunked: Reports of infectious obesity and divorce were grossly overstated. Have you heard that divorce is contagious? A lot of people have. Last summer a study claiming to show that break-ups can propagate from friend to friend to friend like a marriage-eating bacillus...
	http://www-personal.umich.edu/ ~bnyhan/unfriending.pdf
	Jul 5, 2011 at 4:55 PM
	BrendanNyhan Brendan Nyhan Strong prez narratives oversold, but Obama can't negotiate RT @davidfrum: Would LBJ face this predicament? or Hillary? http://t.co/boFNC99
	Obama plays nice, GOP turns tough Editor's note: David Frum writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002, he is the author of six books, including "Comeback: Conservatism ...
	Jul 5, 2011 at 3:22 PM

Comments

[David in Cal]

I'm sorry to see that Brendan takes seriously Chris Mooney's discussion of Kahan's study of climate change. Brendan had a previous post about Mooney's discussion. I thought we had disposed of Mooney, but, Judith Curry's blog, which Brendan links to, really tears Mooney to bits.

Prof. Curry is a noted physicist and an expert on climate change. Many of her commenters appear to be scientists who are knowledgable about climate research. So the discussion is at a high level. Read the whole thing.

The bottom line is that climate skepticism is a reasonable scientific position. That's why skeptics are more scientifically sophisticated than warmists. To look for a psychological explanation for climate skepticism is like looking for a psychological explanation for Galileo's heliocentrism. (For a convenient summary of why skepticism is reasonable, see )

[David in Cal]

Political scientists are trained to require a sample of adequate size before drawing any general conclusion. However, when the general conclusion is a politically correct piety, that rule goes out the window.

Based on a single event, Jonathan Chait concludes that black construction workers have worse legal and employment protections than white workers. That may be the case, but one anecdote hardly proves it. Nor did Chait provide any comparison of unfair treatment of white workers to see whether blacks are actually treated worse.

Later in the article, Chait has a flat-out incorrect statement (for which he offers no evidence at all):

In the real world, class is very sticky. You have to be very smart, hard-working, and/or lucky to move from the bottom to the top, and very dumb, lazy, and/or unlucky to fall out of the upper tier if you've arrived or even been born there.

Economist Thomas Sowell has studied this matter. Unlike Chait, Dr. Sowell bases his conclusions on actual data. Sowell has observed that it's the rule, not the exception, for people to move between income quintiles during their lifetimes:

Although such discussions have been phrased in terms of people, the actual empirical evidence cited has been about what has been happening over time to statistical categories — and that turns out to be the direct opposite of what has happened over time to flesh-and-blood human beings, most of whom move from one category to another over time.

In terms of statistical categories, it is indeed true that both the amount of income and the proportion of all income received by those in the top 20% bracket have risen over the years, widening the gap between the top and bottom quintiles.

But Internal Revenue Service data following specific individuals over time show that, in terms of people, the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the bottom 20% in income in 1996 rose 91% by 2005, while the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the top 20% in 1996 rose by only 10% by 2005 — and those in the top 5% and top 1% actually declined.

While it might seem as if both these radically different sets of statistics cannot be true at the same time, what makes them mutually compatible is that flesh-and-blood human beings move from one statistical category to another over time.

When those taxpayers who were initially in the lowest income bracket had their incomes nearly double in a decade, that moved many of them up and out of the bottom quintile — and when those in the top 1% had their incomes cut by about one-fourth, that may well have dropped them out of the top 1%.

Internal Revenue Service data can follow particular individuals over time from their tax returns, which have individual Social Security numbers as identification, while data from the Census Bureau and most other sources follow what happens to statistical categories over time, even though it is not the same individuals in the same categories over the years.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/ArticlePrint.aspx?id=517564

[David in Cal]

Kevin Drum's chart shows that Democrats strongly prefer Congressmen who compromise; Republicans, just as strongly, prefer Congressmen who don't. IMHO the reason is that the so-called "compromise" position is pretty much the Democratic position.

If asked, I think the typical Republican would say to cut spending by the full amount of the current deficit, which is around $1.6 trillion. That would get spending down to around $3 trillion/year, where it was in 1999.

By comparison, Obama's "compromise" has talked about (but not specifically offered) cuts of around $3 or $4 trillion over 10 years. That's only 20% to 25% of the deficit. This "compromise" position would maintain federal spending at $4 to $5 trillion/year -- a level that Republicans consider excessive.

In short, "compromise" means maintaining a level of federal spending that Dems approve of and Reps don't. That's why Dems like "compromise" and Reps don't.

[David in Cal]

The flaw in that study of student attitudes toward gay professors is pointed out in the comments following. Perhaps gay professors are more politically liberal than straight professors., If so, then it wouldn't be bias for students to make that assumption. The authors should have included in their study a comparison of actual gay and straight political attitudes.

However, I think such a comparison would violate a taboo. PC rules say that one is not allowed to question whether gays are the same as straights in any respect.

[Metrichead]

I think Abramowitz missed discussing a point about why closet partisans refer to themselves as independents. Labels help us identify and understand people/things in general, but to do so carries a stigma. Along with the good comes the bad.

I.e., you're a Republican/conservative, therefore you're this, this, and that, but the reality most conservatives or liberals are not 100% conservative all the time. Thus, giving a label about someone gives us blanket assumptions about who they are, when really there's depth and nuance that isn't immediately looked at.

[MartyB]

RE: All of Modern Politics in One Chart

As this not a rather embarrassing finding for Democrats?

:-)