I am usually the first one to criticize IQ tests when the subject comes up, but I feel obligated to play for the other team for a moment here. For an IQ score to have any merit or meaning at all, it must be your result on a standard test administered by a trained psychologist. An IQ score you get from an online test is worthless, as is an IQ estimate based on writing samples (as in the comic).
While there are many valid criticisms of IQ testing and the use of IQ scores, the fact that your score varied on an online quiz is not one of them.
There are a lot of people in this world who can cling to beliefs in the face of raw facts. You know, the “My magic book says it’s so and I don’t care how many scientists disagree” mentality. That mindset doesn’t bother me; there are plenty of people in my life who make it through life powered by emotion rather than logic. Hell, my mother isn’t the most facts-driven person in the world and I love her anyway.
But when it comes to rational debate of important issues, I avoid such people, and that’s one of the things I appreciate about this board: the over-abundance of fact-driven people. And so it makes me sad to see their lacking in this thread.
I just wish one defender would step up to the plate and say, “Yeah he made a mistake, but he’s generally very good about keeping things factual.” And I would agree with that; in general Trudeau does good research, not just in technical detail but in social nuances. I think of his columns about the Dot Com world, or the current Stem Cell world.
But you guys comparing it to Broom Hilda and asking “What’s the big deal?” do nothing for your cause and make you look silly in the process. I see someone above actually implied that facts don’t even matter on the Op/Ed page, since it’s only opinion. As I say, such “facts don’t matter” people are fine people, but please stay out of the intellectual sandbox. Go back to your coffeeshops and change the world.
Bill H., if Trudeau was using an actual, real-world, study in error, then yes, he should be criticized for it. I honestly thought he had invented it in order to make his point. Facts do matter, and the cited instance of the fraudulent ANWR termination story is a good call.
[sub]My shoes can STILL beat W at Scrabble, even with a 50 point handicap.[/sub]
Facts matter, but so does paying attention to the other person’s argument. If you reread my post you will see that my point was that OP/ED pieces play fast and loose with the facts quite often. It seems odd that one should jump on a cartoon and demand more of it than of an OP/ED piece. Cartoons should logically have a lower standard of accuracy than OP/ED pieces.
Yes, although Trudeau usually footnotes accurate information, it is becomming clear that he misjudged many readers’ common sense by printing this without a disclaimer of some sort.
Of course some op/ed pieces play fast and loose with facts to make a point. That’s why they are on the same page (or section) as Letters To The Editor…where the reader can write in to rebut the op/ed piece. I think that’s what Bill H is doing here (even though I disagree with his particular analysis of the strip in question).
Editorial cartoons are on the same page as test op/ed pieces for the same reason…and are open to the same rebuttal process as text based pieces.
If one accepts the premise that Doonesbury is a form of editorial cartoon (a debatable point, to be sure) than why isn’t it open to the same sort of criticism as other editorial cartoons and text based opinion pieces?
I consider Bill H’s point to be the equivalent of of writing a Letter To The Editor complaining about the “facts” used in an opinion piece by Clarence Page, Ellen Goodman or William F. Buckley.
Comments like this are…well, they are just so wrong on so many levels. But I’ll keep it as simple as possible.
Gobear, I have nothing whatsoever against you, or for you for that matter. But this kind of “Everybody hates you” bullshit drives me nuts. You don’t know everyone on this board, and you absolutely do not know how everyone on this board feels about anything, much less how they feel about Chas. E. You know that a few vocal people have attacked him publicly and that you personally detest him, and that’s all you know or are likely to ever know.
You have a right to say how YOU feel. You can, if you insist, speak to the fact that some others feel similarly. But here on the SDMB, where we supposedly fight ignorance, it is an ignorant, untrue, and frankly immature statement to say to anyone else: “You are universally detested on this board.”
Not to mention the fact that it’s just fuckin’ ugly.
A writer of OP/ED pieces who quotes fake sources will not go far. It’s that simple. Phony sources cause lack of respect; lack of respect causes death. In the journalism world, making up facts is very much frowned upon. In fact, the discovery of made up facts by others is very much smiled upon.
Do you really believe that Mr. Trudeau’s exclusive (or even principal) interest is to make people laugh? Do you really believe that influencing people’s views and behaviours is not part of his agenda? Do you really believe that of other political comentators as well?
So the facts are that Trudeau took a known spoof that is ridiculous on its face and ran with it.
I suppose those who are morally offended by any repetition of a UL might choose to be offended. Given that Doonesbury is based on spoofing the current scene (with special attention to politicians), the absolute worst charge of which he can be convicted is a lack of originality. I cannot believe that anyone literate enough to appreciate Doonesbury, (appreciate meaning to understand, not to enjoy), is foolish enough to believe that the “study” was real or that Dubya has a “below average” IQ.
tomndebb, are you serious about that post? Snopes says it’s a particularly dumb urban legend, and you take that as evidence that it’s good? That has got to be the silliest piece of logic I’ver ever heard.
I will repeat - facts are important. I honestly believe, however, that there are a variety of modes of persuasion. A rational argument, built from facts is one mode. A joke can persuade as well, but it does so in a very different way, one that can be based on emotions and not reason. Until I read some of the arguments in this thread, I thought it was well established that daily newspaper cartoons should not be viewed as a source of information, but as a forum for humor. Yes, this humor might be persuasive, but I thought that any rational person would look elsewhere for factual reasons to support his or her argument.
The “study” in the cartoon in question seemed patently absurd to me. Not only is the concept of I.Q. pretty thoroughly discredited, but the idea of determining I.Q. from a president’s writing is silly. Besides, what is this the thesis of Trudeau’s “persuasive” argument anyway? That W is stupid? Those who believe he is have thought so for a long time; those who believe he isn’t are not going to be convinced by a “study” whether it is published in the funny pages or the New England Journal of Medicine.
The UL’s perpetuated by opinion columnists are presented as evidence for a serious thesis. The McDonalds’s coffee story is used to justify tort reform. The claim that our tax refunds will have to be paid back next year is used to criticize Bush’s budget plan. Using a patently absurd study to make the silly point that W is dumb is a totally different mode of persuasion, and anyone who honestly cannot tell the difference is unprepared to participate in democracy in ways far more fundamental than having bad information.
Oh, my friend. Surely you’ve heard of the concept of advertising. Surely you’re aware that billions of dollars are poured into advertising. Surely you’re aware that the specific and exclusive goal of advertising is to modify peoples behaviour.
Tell me, my friend, tell me that you really believe that every penny of that money is wasted because words do not cause actions. Or please retract your assessment that words that attempt to cause changes in behaviour do not.
What would you have thought of Trudeau doing a strip based on the disproven urban legend that Bush refused to sell his house to blacks? Is that ok as well?
If it’s ok to base it on a disproven urban legend, then is it ok to make up one? How about if he did a strip about Bush raping someone or committing some other atrocity, and throwing in names and dates that look authentic? Is that ok?
Bill… can you cozy up to the idea that anybody who bases their understanding and opinions of the world on cartoons, no matter how political, gets what they deserve out of life? Can you stop for a moment and consider that such people are so utterly clueless to begin with that altering the cartoons because of their cluelessness is sorta like shutting the barn door months after all the animals have not only escaped, but have gone on to live freely and breed?
ummm…Did you read my post? I thought I was very clear that humor was a form of persuasion; my main point was that, like most advertising, it is persuasion not based on facts, and not EXPECTED to be based on facts. Is it wrong to advertise using emotions and suggestions and not facts? Must every public discourse which relates to political figures be stricly and verifiably factual. Ugh! What a tiresome world that would be.
I should have made it clearer that this argument has forced me to think carefully about why I think the cartoon was OK. A key point is that the thesis of the cartoon isn’t substantive, therefore claims made either way don’t have to be entirely factual. Blatent racism is a substantive issue. The claim that Bush refused to rent his house to blacks WOULD be likely to sway people’s opinions one way or the other on that issue.
The point is that is was so implausible that any rational person would realize that it was a joke. He specifically did not latch onto a UL such as the one that had Bush violating fair housing laws. Had Trudeau used the housing discrimination one, then I would have been upset because it would have seemed plausible to some people. That would have been a low blow. (Something on the order of Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh promoting the “Clinton Death List” (for which I am sure you wrote to each of those worthies, chastising them for propagating a serious lie).)
Did you write a similar letter to Trudeau when he did his “exploration” of Reagan’s brain? That, too, was based on a reported story going round at the time. Of course, in those primitive times, we expected people to recognize jokes when they were painted with such a broad brush as to be incredible.