# I Think We Have Lost **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 14, 2022, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792 "2022-01-14T16:31:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/241 "2022-03-07T03:42:22Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Except for the fact that it was never remotely likely to occur. Now you’re mixing up “fact” and “opinion”. Obviously, in a cultural climate where conservative politicians are heavily milking “culture wars” misunderstandings about schools’ approaches to teaching the history of US racial issues, whether or not it is “likely” for a conservative administration to issue an executive order about race-related curricula in response to Black History Month is a matter of opinion. I mean, we’re talking about politicians who are already advocating for, and in some cases have already enacted, restrictions on what students are allowed to be taught about the history of US racism. And you’re kidding yourself if you think there isn’t already a [conservative push to ban or restrict teaching related to Black History Month based on that advocacy](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/black-history-month-how-new-rules-are-limiting-diversity-education-in-schools). > [@](#): > > In Alabama, officials have already gotten complaints from some parents who say that celebrating Black History Month constitutes the teaching of critical race theory. Now, the officials there are not agreeing that it is critical race theory, but just the fact that people now feel comfortable lodging these complaints against a celebration like Black History Month shows the political climate that we’re in. Also, there’s various children’s books about Black History Month or, you know, celebrated African-Americans that parents have complained about. So books about the march on Washington, for example, about Ruby Bridges, the little girl who desegregated her school. Also, even biographies of. Michelle Obama and the athlete, Wilma Rudolph, all of these books have gotten complaints. […] > > So that complaint came out of Texas, a suburb of Dallas, and the concern was just that the book mentioned the racism that Rudolph endured in Tennessee during the 1940s. So many of these laws say that, you know, any references that could make students feel uncomfortable, especially white students, feel uncomfortable in some way about racism or about the history they’re being taught, that parents can complain about that. And that’s what we’re seeing, parents saying they’re uncomfortable with references to racism. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/242 "2022-03-07T03:45:05Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I mean, we’re talking about politicians who are already advocating for, and in some cases have already enacted, restrictions on what students are allowed to be taught about the history of US racism. And you’re kidding yourself if you think there isn’t already a [conservative push to ban or restrict teaching related to Black History Month based on that advocacy](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/black-history-month-how-new-rules-are-limiting-diversity-education-in-schools). - Anticipated nit-pick deflection. “Those aren’t Governors.” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/243 "2022-03-07T03:57:11Z")
Sure they aren’t governors. But obviously their actions and views as constituents and/or legislators affect the “likelihood” of governors’ choices. I know you know this, just spelling it out for anybody who might not. And while I’m spelling things out, we might as well also anticipate possible appeals to the “well obviously it wasn’t likely because it didn’t happen” fallacy. The fact that no (known) gubernatorial executive orders restricting Black History Month curricula were actually issued in February doesn’t automatically mean that the possibility was “never remotely likely to occur”. Any more than a flipped coin coming up heads automatically means that it must have had a low likelihood of coming up tails. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/244 "2022-03-07T05:22:05Z")
No. It’s you folks don’t understand the basics of probability. Say you have a goat behind two doors and a car behind a third… ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/245 "2022-03-07T06:31:59Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > No. It’s you folks don’t understand the basics of probability. Yeah, it’s still above your head. I think it might have briefly knocked off the tiny hat. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/246 "2022-03-07T07:19:24Z")
I’m not the one confusing number of categories with number of states. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/247 "2022-03-07T08:07:23Z")
I know the difference between fact and opinion. Trouble is, many posters do not. How many times do people attempt to “cite” the opinions of others, or even worse, their own opinions, as if they were, indeed, fact? Happens all the time around here. Are they called out for this error? Not if the board majority agrees with them. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/248 "2022-03-07T11:14:59Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > How many times do people attempt to “cite” the opinions of others, or even worse, their own opinions, as if they were, indeed, fact? Happens all the time around here. Do you have a cite for this? ---
**Author:** ![yarblek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/71e660/32.png) [@yarblek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yarblek)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2022, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/249 "2022-03-07T23:06:03Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Giving 50% odds is in fact a mathematically precise way of declaring that you think the potential event is exactly as likely not to occur as it is to occur. You really can’t get less “prediction-y” than that. Any percentage prediction is a prediction that can easily be evaluated but only with some (possibly but not necessarily hard to determine) sample size. If **Ann\_Hedonia** would have (or has) done hundreds or thousands of 50% predictions, the closer to exactly one half of these predictions turned out to be true, the more confident we can be that any one of her future 50% predictions will likely be correct half the time. I don’t really understand why a 50% chance prediction should be considered meaningless. A 50% prediction should be correct close to 1/2 the time to be accurate. Ask any professional gambler or poker player whether giving something a 50% chance is somehow less ‘prediction-y’ than any other precentage would make them think you’re either kidding or fundamentally don’t understand probability. If someone gave you better than 1-to-1 odds against a random future 50% prediction of **Ann\_Hedonia** ’s, you would be winning money in the long run if you were to take the bet (assuming her 50% predictions are accurate). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/250 "2022-03-08T03:36:51Z")
> [@yarblek](#): > > I don’t really understand why a 50% chance prediction should be considered meaningless. A 50% prediction should be correct close to 1/2 the time to be accurate. Ask any professional gambler or poker player whether giving something a 50% chance is somehow less ‘prediction-y’ than any other precentage You’re mixing up the concept of giving 50% odds on an outcome with the concept of claiming that that outcome will occur. This is where D\_Anconia made his error, by absurdly suggesting that Ann\_Hedonia was “wrong” in offering 50% odds on a particular outcome because it turned out that that outcome didn’t happen. Which is nonsense, of course. As I noted, if you give 50% odds that a particular fair coin will come up heads the next time you flip it and instead it comes up tails, you were not making a “prediction” that heads would come up, and you were not “wrong” in your estimate of the odds. Now you, yarblek, are trying to stretch the interpretation even further by imagining that Ann\_Hedonia’s odds offer reflects some kind of testable probabilistic model of random complex political events, and that the real issue is whether Ann’s supposed model is accurate over very large numbers of such events. Which is also nonsense. Not only is it very dubious to suppose that random complex political events can have meaningfully testable probabilistic models at all, but even if they did, that still wouldn’t make such a model “wrong” in giving 50% odds on the outcome of a single event. There is no way for a single event to have some particular outcome “half the time”. For example, you might have a rock-solid probabilistic model of, say, the behavior of a flipped fair coin (namely, you predict that it will come up heads about half the time, and over hundreds and thousands of trials your model proves remarkably accurate). That still would not make you “wrong” if on one particular flip you offered 50% odds that the coin would come up heads and instead it came up tails. There is no “half the time” in the context of one particular flip. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/251 "2022-03-08T04:00:34Z")
God god you nerds, get a room. 🙃 😆 ---
**Author:** ![yarblek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/71e660/32.png) [@yarblek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yarblek)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/252 "2022-03-08T07:35:46Z")
You are not wrong. However, this same principle applies to _any_ percentage prediction when the sample size is small and when trying to determine how accurate the person is in doing predictions. There is a difference between evaluating an abstract prediction model and simply evaluating whether someone makes accurate predictions. The latter is very easy to do with a sufficient sample size, no models or theories beyond basic evaluation of how often the predictions were correct is needed. Most of these ‘I think X has a Y% chance of occuring’ are not based on much more than intuition or educated guesses, but some people have better intuition and educated guesses than others (or at least in some subjects). Trying to tease out those two groups from each other is not inherently pointless IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/253 "2022-03-08T15:45:52Z")
> [@yarblek](#): > > However, this same principle applies to _any_ percentage prediction when the sample size is small and when trying to determine how accurate the person is in doing predictions. Exactly. As Atamasama noted in post #231, > [@Atamasama](#): > > Let’s say someone is tossing a ball into a basket and I say they have a 10% chance of making it, and they make it. You can’t say I was wrong because they made the basket. I obviously allowed for that possibility. > [@yarblek](#): > > There is a difference between evaluating an abstract prediction model and simply evaluating whether someone makes accurate predictions. Yes, but neither of those can be done on a sample size of 1, which is all we’ve got here. ---
**Author:** ![irae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f0a364/32.png) [@irae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irae)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/254 "2022-03-08T19:09:20Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I have friends and relatives who are intelligent, thoughtful Republicans. I may have disagreed with them on issues, but we could have conversations and debates. They’ve become horrified at what the GOP and the conservative movement have turned into, but they are clearly a tiny minority within their party now. But will that horror prevent them from voting R? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/255 "2022-03-08T19:14:34Z")
> [@irae](#): > > But will that horror prevent them from voting R? For at least one, it has. He was (and still is) a never-Trumper, and refuses to vote for any GOP candidate who is a Trump supporter. The other that I knew well was my late father-in-law, who died in late 2019. Had he lived to see January 6th, I suspect that that would have been the final straw for him, with the GOP, as he was vehement about respect for the office and for the institution of the government. ---
**Author:** ![irae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f0a364/32.png) [@irae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irae)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792/256 "2022-03-08T20:17:13Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > For at least one, it has. He was (and still is) a never-Trumper, and refuses to vote for any GOP candidate who is a Trump supporter. > > The other that I knew well was my late father-in-law, who died in late 2019. Had he lived to see January 6th, I suspect that that would have been the final straw for him, with the GOP, as he was vehement about respect for the office and for the institution of the government. Please thank them for their service on my behalf. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-have-lost/957792.md?page=12)