Wish-a-ton DC: Harry Reid launches the Democratic war on Math

Harry Reid launches the Democratic war on Math | RedState

Harry Reid launches the Democratic war on Math

All who mocked Sharron Angle owe America an apology for foisting Malibu Stacy here on us

Wednesday, March 14th at 3:00PM EDT

9 Comments

Harry Reid, the floor leader of the Democrats in the United States Senate, the most influential Democrat in the entire Congress, is innumerate. You see, he not only lacks an understanding of mathematics, apparently having no understanding of what kinds of sample sizes are needed to get an accurate sense of American public opinion, but he is also actively promoting his anti-math viewpoint against statistical, scientific polling.

Innumeracy is a real problem in America, said to be associated with problems like belief in pseudoscience, higher debt, problem gambling, and limited job prospects. Sadly, America is already suffering some of these consequences under the poor leadership of Harry Reid and his party. Since Harry Reid took over the Senate our debt has indeed skyrocketed, thanks in part to the failure of the Harry Reid Senate even to pass a budget at all, America’s job prospects have diminished, and the fad of global warming pseudoscience has continued unabated.

It’s easy to see why Clark County, Nevada wanted to return him to the Senate though, since innumeracy is what keeps the lights on there. I don’t understand why we must endure him as our Senate Majority Leader any more, though. Let’s take the Senate and knock him off in November.

Mathematics is at the heart of science. Millions of students of science all across America learn every day about how confidence intervals are a basic tool in understanding data. The typical Margin of Error cited for a poll is simply a particular way of stating the 95% confidence interval of the data gathered in the survey.

This is a subject from Chapter One of the government’s own Engineering Statistics Handbook, and a subject matter that any serious student of gambling should also know about. It’s shocking that a four-year Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission would not understand the application and limits of variance to random results.

What’s interesting though is that Harry Reid didn’t used to be quite this innumerate. Even though now he claims that relatively small samples are inappropriate for measuring the opinions of “300 million people,” in the past he claimed that as few as 1200 people were enough to tell us popular opinion on SCHIP.

It would be unkind of me to suggest that Harry Reid’s sudden and vocal innumeracy was a dishonest effort motivated by political calculations, so I’ll instead float the idea that Reid suffers from late-onset Dyscalculia.

9 Comments Leave a comment

Nice Job Harry

trueconservative2012 Wednesday, March 14th at 3:39PM EDT (link)

This is hilarious. I love how Reid dismisses a single poll showing how Obama is down to 41% in job approval. But now that 4 more polls are out showing Obama way back up around 50%, he cant really say much. what a joke.

Yeah, but

BlueLandRed (Diary) Wednesday, March 14th at 8:57PM EDT (link)

still, I’m more worried about the what the 4 polls say then the apparent outlier.

And I find it hard to believe that even 25% of the country would approve of the job Obama has done. Not that the GOP has done anything but help ensure the Obama going to win in Nov. against our shortlist of potential candidates, aka losers. Sigh. Obama and his minions are determined to screw this country in a socialist quagmire.

I’d threaten to leave, but there’s no place else to go. Any place decent enough to live either want to take my guns or are already a socialist quagmire.

Innumeracy is hopefully something the Democrats will suffer from in Washington in January

Mike Ferguson (Diary) Wednesday, March 14th at 5:07PM EDT (link)

(nt)

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.
Ronald Reagan

Well, Reid does have a point

Return to Revolution (Diary) Wednesday, March 14th at 5:22PM EDT (link)

with his comment, “the poll is flawed….in the way questions were asked”. From his perspective, the proper wording for whether you approved of Obama would be, “Are you a disgusting, racist, bigot?” Sometimes folks spin and distort even though they understand the concepts because they can’t win with objective facts. Can’t give Reid that much credit though.

Also, the post reminded me of a great read. Short but informative and suprisingly interesting

http://www.amazon.com/Innumeracy-Mathematical-Illiteracy-Its-Consequences/dp/0809058405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331759792&sr=8-1

Out of hand Constitutional fetishist

Man

Neil Stevens (Diary) Wednesday, March 14th at 5:34PM EDT (link)

I started reading your comment and my ban trigger finger got itchy there for a second.

RS contributing editor, technical administrator, and “a hardy variety of crabgrass.”
Read the RedState Posting Rules

Unlikely Voter: Poll Analysis, Election Projection.

“I rejoice that America has resisted.” – William Pitt, the Elder

Intelligence without statistical knowledge is like a mouth without teeth

jakeofalltrades (Diary) Wednesday, March 14th at 8:11PM EDT (link)

How else can one know at what point it is safe to generalize from his casual observations, and to what population to generalize? How can you competently and efficiently prepare for the unknown without understanding the normal distribution? How do you fight prejudice or assess your relative place in the world without understanding it?

You should have to pass statistics in order to get out of high school IMO. And you definitely need to know stat before you can be allowed vote.

There you go again.

Flagstaff (Diary) Thursday, March 15th at 12:15AM EDT (link)

First you say, “Let’s take the Senate and knock him off in November.” Then you add that your “trigger finger got itchy.”

Next thing you know, BO himself will be writing on here about the need for “civil discourse.” He might even bring over Bill Maher and David Letterman and Keefums Olby to teach us by example.

“The press is so powerful in its image-making role that it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”– Malcolm X, Audubon Ballroom, December 13, 1964

Harry Reid's math seems good enough to put a lot of dollars in his own pocket

Next93 (Diary) Wednesday, March 14th at 10:13PM EDT (link)

N/A

Obama was The One in 2008.
He’ll be a BIGGER one in 2012.

Define "poll"

livefreenh Thursday, March 15th at 5:50AM EDT (link)

The poll that matters, that is the one done in a “polling place” is the election. Anything done outside of that is more properly called “re-framing the terms of the discussion”. For this reason, the official poll, the one that matters, is going to be (illegally) altered to agree with the unofficial poll “results”. Statisticians will be arguing over the results for years, similarly to how the PDF experts indeed declare the thing is a composite document, but once the election is certified, it will be too late. Call me a conspiratist if you want, attack the man, but you will see this November that this is the strategy that will be used. There will be no armed NBP’s at polling places – it will be orderly. And then the vote totals will be changed and reported. This is all simple stuff, and probably will never be allowed to happen again. But it will happen this once. Nov 2012.

Wish-a-ton DC

Thursday, March 15, 2012