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[Reelya]

If they're testing them on GMO knowledge, and then extrapolating from that that they don't know science in general, then that's a leap in logic.

There's nowhere that it says " they're testing them on GMO knowledge". The article actually uses the phrase "science in general" for the content of the test, funnily enough. Now, you're asking whether such a test can be extrapolated to "science in general" which is hard to answer. Is it a leap in logic that a test of "science in general" can determine whether you know "science in general"? Only if we get really philosophical about it, I think.

Second, "know the least" is pretty clear. if people of a specific group scored the least correct answers on a "science in general" test then it's not much of a stretch to claim that people of this group generally "know the least" about "science in general".

You're saying "know the least" is problematic because it could apply to anything. But that's just deliberately being a jackass by ignoring the obvious context. For example if an article title was "people who don't listen to much music tend to know the least" then it's just being a jackass to argue "know the least about what exactly?" About music, duh. That much is goddamn obvious. If the topic is science, "know the least" clearly refers to science, the noun in the same sentence.

and this can be more pronounced when those fifteen questions are divided up into multiple fields, as the article seems to imply

But wasn't your first point about how the test was too narrow? Now it's too broad apparently. 

the higher the chance that they might end up falling into a "gap" in an otherwise-educated person's knowledge

That's why they had 2000 subjects. While with 15 questions, it's possible for what you said to happen ... for it to happen to 2000 people in a row in a way which systematically biases the results against "otherwise educated" anti-GMO people is astronomically unlikely.

[McTraveller]

I'm still waiting for a study which covers just how appropriate it is to assume a normal distribution when it comes to polling human populations.  I believe that polling is often "so wrong" because the assumption that extrapolating full population behavior from a sample is not valid.

That is - human populations don't really follow the normal distribution (or whatever continuous distribution is used) that allows you to extrapolate total population characteristic from a sample is flawed.

Or maybe it's valid for some polls, but not others?  More precisely, I think there is a huge dependence on geography and local influence when it comes to population characterization.

[Max™]

I mean, how much of a statistics background do you have?

Also fuck anti-gmo people, that fucking triscuits commercial is baffling to me, bunch of morons reading the side of the box where it says "non-genetically modified" but they're going "non-genenenamodibanana" "nanagenuhmamama" "nongenetimomodomoh whoops I shit myself" "nahnahnahmuhmuhmuhbutheremails" on and on and it's like, ok, who is this commercial supposed to be aimed at, do people like being told they're functionally illiterate goddamn mouthbreathers?

[Kagus]

You're saying "know the least" is problematic because it could apply to anything. But that's just deliberately being a jackass by ignoring the obvious context. For example if an article title was "people who don't listen to much music tend to know the least" then it's just being a jackass to argue "know the least about what exactly?" About music, duh. That much is goddamn obvious. If the topic is science, "know the least" clearly refers to science, the noun in the same sentence.

You wanna get angry about this? Alright.

You have a different definition of what is obvious in those snippets than I do. The topical focus on GMOs in those statements does not make it immediately clear, in my opinion, that the first usage of a general term is specifically neutral and not just a continuation of the topic that was previously focused on.

But it's an article, not the study itself, so I suppose I shouldn't get too hung up on it dispensing with specification for the sake of broader terms that make for a headline with more punch and click potential.

and this can be more pronounced when those fifteen questions are divided up into multiple fields, as the article seems to imply

But wasn't your first point about how the test was too narrow? Now it's too broad apparently.

Now, see, I thought it was obvious that my statement here was specifically in reference to the passage directly before it ("this"), about how a smaller number of questions on a given topic has the potential to fall through the cracks, so to speak. Which absolutely does apply when you ask even fewer questions about a given topic (such as in the case of spreading 15 questions across not just GMOs, but who knows what other areas of scientific fact). But clearly I was mistaken, as you've interpreted this in an entirely different way and even clipped that part of the quote in after this one.


Do you want to keep going, or do you agree that this discussion is ridiculous?

[Trekkin]

do people like being told they're functionally illiterate goddamn mouthbreathers?

In a word, yes. It's like the self-described deplorables back in 2016: denigrate people with something for long enough and some of them will own it just to spite you. There's a related phenomenon in Flat Earth discourse (and others, but I like watching these guys) in which people will proudly boast that they're just regular Joes with no scientific training just looking at the ocean and seeing how flat it is and so forth; while this is partly to distance themselves from the scientists they believe are in on the grand global conspiracy of vagueness (and, of course, it makes them seem relatable) it's also part of the general trend of anti-intellectualism extending from the honeybee aerodynamics myth through NOMA and beyond: the general idea that "experts" are some vaguely sinister other, and demonstrating an inability to understand their high-falutin tinhorn doubletalk is a way to signal you're on the side of everyone else.

[Kagus]

do people like being told they're functionally illiterate goddamn mouthbreathers?

In a word, yes. It's like the self-described deplorables back in 2016: denigrate people with something for long enough and some of them will own it just to spite you. There's a related phenomenon in Flat Earth discourse (and others, but I like watching these guys) in which people will proudly boast that they're just regular Joes with no scientific training just looking at the ocean and seeing how flat it is and so forth; while this is partly to distance themselves from the scientists they believe are in on the grand global conspiracy of vagueness (and, of course, it makes them seem relatable) it's also part of the general trend of anti-intellectualism extending from the honeybee aerodynamics myth through NOMA and beyond: the general idea that "experts" are some vaguely sinister other, and demonstrating an inability to understand their high-falutin tinhorn doubletalk is a way to signal you're on the side of everyone else.

Remember: Scientists never have sex. It's in the word; layman.

[Hanslanda]

Save the world, fuck a scientist.

[TD1]

That seems like Scientist propaganda to me.

[birdy51]

Human beings are just sort of bad at assessing reality. Flat earth for lyfe, whoo!

[Greiger]

Pfft if video game RPGs taught me anything it taught me that the world is a duocylinder.

[Trekkin]

Flat earth for lyfe, whoo!

In fairness to Flat Earthers, the geoid is very close to conformal with the surface of the Earth at large scales, so in that sense the planet is flat: wherever you go on the surface, gravity pulls in the same direction relative to the horizon as far as you can detect casually. Earth's a flat sphere*.

Looked at in that light, Flat Earther rhetoric starts to make more sense: they were never taught the non-Euclidean geometry to understand their planet, so they cannot reconcile their own experience with what the photographs from space show, and their own experience has gotten them this far. The conspiracy theory is just an exigency of making that choice in light of all the indications that Earth isn't a flat plane.

*In preemptive response to the pedants: it's an oblate spheroid. So's your mom.

[Hanslanda]

My mom's more of an amorphous irregular pentagonoid structure.

[Starver]

Is she not topologically a teapot? With ?four? extra handles?

[Bumber]

Is she not topologically a teapot? With ?four? extra handles?

Yo momma's so fat, her topological teapot has more than four extra handles.

[Gentlefish]

Topologically, we are all coffeemugs.