In academia, one of the greatest concerns with statistical studies is the danger of “confirmation bias” or “myside bias.” A desire to prove a point can lead to a blindness to opposing data or information. This week, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) repeatedly demonstrated the scourge of statistical studies with spectacular and embarrassing success.
Klobuchar released a chart before Thanksgiving to blame President Donald Trump for rising consumer costs. The only problem is that the chart showed that the skyrocketing costs occurred under former President Joe Biden. Klobuchar focused on the short period on the chart representing Trump’s second presidency, while ignoring the soaring costs under his predecessor.
What is most notable is that just the week before, Klobuchar committed the same error, associating rising energy costs with Trump, who saw energy costs soar under Biden. The response was withering:
Confirmation bias has been previously prevalent among politicians like Klobuchar. Of course, many simply do not care if the statistical claims are true in advancing their immediate political agenda. However, many can fall victim to their own desire for facts to be true and the bias can actually increase with more information:
“Worryingly, when the politicians were given more pieces of information on performance, they actually performed worse, relying more heavily on their prior attitudes. That means the issue cannot simply be addressed by relying on civil servants to provide more or better evidence for policy making – especially since civil servants are not immune from motivated reasoning themselves.”
For Klobuchar, the charts proved an absolute face planting. However, in our largely siloed news market, many citizens will receive such claims without seriously reviewing the underlying chart or data.
The irony is that, for those who did review the data, the claim only resulted in highlighting the countervailing message put out by the White House.
That is the pesky problem with trend charts. As Adlai Stevenson noted, “we can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.” That “path” was clearly laid out, and then ignored, by Sen. Klobuchar.
I feel a little bit sorry for Klobuchar, and here’s why:
Once old Joe FINALLY won a nominating contest in 2020, first Mayor Pete and then Amy dropped out of the presidential race — Amy on the very eve of Super Tuesday.
Why? Why not just let things ride, and decide what to do next on Wednesday?
In retrospect they were promised future positions. The former mayor of a 100,000 person town got a Cabinet post. But I believe Amy held out for nothing less than the VP slot.
But then George Floyd was killed, and Amy was out.
.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/04/trump-hurricane-dorian-alabama-sharpie-map
Senator Klobuchar, may we suggest you aim the weapon holding the pistol grip and not the barrel?
Politics of The Moment and Historic Injustice are what matter to the ideologue. All facts and data are interpreted to support the emotional plea for power and honest consideration of contradictory information isn’t an option for a politician, journalist, or a captured data-scientist. Climate change, Covid-19, Crime stats, impacts of 4 years of King Biden’s Sanctuary Nation-Invasion policy, are all examples of fodder for political advancement and objectively viewing anything or debating a correct course to remedy problems is not really the realm of elected politicians, the bureaucracy, or the powers that place them in government. Certainly scheming and convincing the populace to place utmost confidence in their brand is a primary objective in the work of gaining power and treasure with a relentless attack upon opponents who seek the same. Consensus and Congress working together on behalf of the American people are moments to be most wary of duplicity being sold as governance. Trump being labelled as the cause of escalating consumer costs is a ploy as old as human government itself, and were prices declining or the moon leaving earth’s orbit, be sure that politicians would continue their course as surely as sh-t stinks and drains back up on Brown Friday after Thanksgetting.
Did you actually think they read this stuff first? A staffer just hands it to her. Probably one who just took a job offer somewhere else. There is so much paper flying it is 99% staff summaries.
If you present information to others and make claims regarding its meaning – you either had better check the analysis yourself or have staff that you trust with your career.
Amy’s misinterpretation of that plot is another vivid example of the long-term mathematical illiteracy of some public high school graduates. And in 2020 this woman thought she was smart enough to run for, and be elected, president? Is it just a coincidence that she and Tim Walz, that other Minnesota genius, are from the same State? God help us.
Vincente she is too old for her education to be this bad.
Klobuchar is a Democrat. Thus, the truth doesn’t matter. Facts don’t matter. Reality doesn’t matter. All that matters is power, and MSNOW along with the rest of ABCNNBCBS “news” outlets will celebrate her economic brilliance in sticking it to Orange Hitler.
Against the maelstrom of lies from Trump this is a flutter of a butterfly wing.
There’s a staff member or 2 who are free next week.
We are lead to believe that our politicians are “educated,” and their staff are some of the best and brightest . . . and then we get this epic face plant.
So says the mass shooter.
The foolish baby posts again.
Hate is all the left has!
You’re the guy with the “collage” degree right? Two “collage” degrees right?
Run the spell check again Einstein.
Oh!!! Poor, poor, annony moron!! She has nothing so she has to resort to the fact DustOff either pressed the wrong key, or it was a auto-correct typo. Those of us with a degree of common sense can see that. But she tries in desperation to conflate a misspelled word into . . . something.
Face plant!
The farmer has a “degree of common sense”. Some good its done for you.
Conflating huh? Noticed you and hullbobby use that word a lot. Check it’s meaning.
Ok, if its a nothing-burger, why do you make an issue of it?
Strongly suggest you use a spellchecker also.
Yawn. If you have sent anytime on the website of others. Folks make spelling mistakes.
Get over yourself.
Hey ano… I missed spelled a word and YOU missed it….. LOL
(spent)
Hey ano… I missed spelled a word and YOU missed it….. LOL
Missed spelled huh? Yeah, you’re the guy with two “collage” degrees huh?
“Yawn. If you have sent anytime on the website of others. Folks make spelling mistakes.’
Sent huh? So you are illiterate.
Yeah, you’re the guy with two “collage” degrees huh?
I’m proud to be lumped in with Upstate who comments using logic and intelligence as opposed to Anonymous who comments like a teenage girl.
Btw, I don’t think I ever used the word conflated in a comment on this site.
Yep two. Now talk about the HATE coming from the dems/libs.
Stay on point fool
So says the facts.
You missed the entire point of Turley’s post.
As I have said many times here – it is easy to be right all the time with everything that you say publicly.
All that is required is to verify any claim you make before making it.
This is especially true today – We live early in the period of history in which the vast majority of facts can be checked almost instantly from a device you can take with you anywhere and hold in your hand – you can even talk to it and it will answer you.
Regardless, UpstateFarmer has a valid additional point – Klobuchar is among the highly educated elites that the left is constantly telling us we must trust as they know so much more than we.
Several people here have discussed the lack of mathematical litteracy, Even Truley got caught up in trying to explain the mathmatics of this in words.
But Klobuchar’s stupidity is trivially seen by a 6yr old merely by highlighting who was president when you her charts.
This is not a mathematical literacy error, This is a basic intelligence error.
Even without cloloring the chart we should be able to expect a US senator to be intelligent enough to look at the chart and grasp that it does not say what she is about to claim in the short period before opening her mouth.
John Say,
Well said.
I have to wonder if it is basic intelligence error or just the lack of common sense. Who would look at this chart and think, “Hey! This is a great way to pin rising costs on Trump!”
Face plant!
Or, do they think their base really that ignorant as to not look at the chart, and just go along with the “Orange Man, BAD!!!” narrative?
Who would look at this chart and think, “Hey! This is a great way to pin rising costs on Trump!”…. You?
UpstateFarmer
Thank you.
I try to avoid using the term common sense.
Mostly because there is no accepted defintion of common sense, Mostly it is synonymous with “going with your gut”.
I absolutely thing that most people make good judgements when they go with their gut.
But at the same time – each of us does NOT have the same “guts”
I found Naseem Talib’s “skin in the game” criteria to be the most reliable predictor of decision quality.
There are many factors that effect decision quality – education, intelligence, …..
But there is no other criteria that near universally results in better quality decisons for ALL people than having “skin in the game”
In generally people make poor decisions when they make decisions for others.
When they make decisions whose consequences they are insulated from.
This is litterally the achilles heel of scoialism – and big government generally
Free markets – which always means skin in the game drive all people to make better choices.
“You missed the entire point of Turley’s post.” Wait, you deciphered the post?
And also use a spellchecker.
ATS – there is nothing here to decipher.
“And also use a spellchecker.” – are you offering to pay me to write ?
If not, your opinion is literally worthless.
John Say,
Great comment and epic take down of ATS!!!
Upstate
(-:
We are begging you to get some help with your spelling. Take some pride in your effort.
The ‘proof man’ is lost in spelling??? 😉
This is small compared to telling people that injecting bleach or frying lungs with cell killing UV lamps was a solution to the COVID pandemic. Or looking directly at the sun. Or taking a marker and changing the map of expected landfall. Or asking if anyone thought of using a nuclear weapon on a hurricane.
This is who the Republicans and Libertarians supported for President. This is the level of intelligence this administration was selected to have.
Undoubtedly, Klobuchar’s stooge brew is just your kinda ‘proof’, eh? 😉
During the 2016 elections, I watched the democratic debates and for me Klobuchar was the one with the most common sense. Of course, she lost miserably so she jigged over to the clown side. When I watched the republican debates, the most common sense one was John Kasich and he also lost miserably. So now everybody has jumped on the silly demagouge wagon.
When I watched the republican debates, the most common sense one was John Kasich
How to tell us you are a Democrat hoping that at least the Republicans would elect a Jimmy Carter type Democrat – without telling us that.
And, imagine that, Republicans didn’t want a RINO after watching eight years of Republicans bending the knee to Obama. Strange how that resulted in Kasich failing miserably in his hope to be the RINO president.
Demagouge is as demagouge does …. If you can’t spell correctly, who can trust your thinking?
Please Click on FrankNero’s reply to Klobuchar on X, as highlighted above (posted by the good professor.)
Please note that yesterday, Frank Nero posted a reminder to all of us (see it at the same X account above), with a video of Trump, Nero saying, “NEVER FORGET When Trump said on August 2021 that it is a mistake to take Afghan refugees.” Listen to what Trump said.
p.s are we all a little groggy this a.m.? I sure am, but hope all have a Thankful day yesterday.)
Well lin, it is a well known principle that the most intelligent and rational thing to do is lump groups of people together, and then judge them not on what the best of them have done, but instead on what the worst. Trump is merely one example of the many, many people in America and elsewhere that operate on that principle.
I have no idea how many of the thousands of our terps and the other Afghans who worked with us during our ten years there, who helped many of us return home alive if not just accomplishing our missions, never got out when Biden suddenly raced to leave Afghanistan because a photo op was looming.
Biden happily abandoned and left them behind to be methodically butchered by the Taliban. To make the Taliban more effective in carrying out that butchery of the Afghans who made the mistake of willingly being our allies, he left them our biometric devices, the records we had on them with their addresses, family members, etc.
But yes, it was a mistake if we actually did bring any of them here instead of deserting them to die – especially the ones we had promised we would give immigration status to in return for the time they worked with us while being seen as traitors helping an occupying enemy force. Meh…. they would have died anyways, no great loss.
The special forces guys who moved heaven and earth to locate their terps and Afghan special forces guys who fought beside them, to get them out of Afghanistan and here to America while Biden’s Afghan debacle was ongoing? They were so wrong to do that. They should be apologetic warriors to Trump and like-minded Americans for making such a grave mistake.
The thousands of rando Afghans that were just flooded willy-nilly onto aircraft when Biden’s administration tried to make it look like they were doing something when the optics started to turn bad??? Maybe Trump and many of the rest of us might figure out it’s not quite as simple as believing they’re all the same?
I had a great thanksgiving and I spared a few moments to give thanks that there were Afghans willing to risk their lives for the tens of thousands of Americans who deployed to carry out our mission in their country. Instead of just going about their daily lives, knowing nothing good could come of risking their lives to help Americans in their country.
Stupid political comment.
They were admitted en masse without proper vetting.
https://www.newsweek.com/jd-vance-dc-national-guard-shooting-2021-video-vetting-afghans-11120540
https://www.foxnews.com/us/ex-fbi-special-agent-explains-afghan-vetting-failues-wake-national-guard-ambush-ticking-time-bomb
and many many many more references to this.
Your bias is reeking through your comment like onion juice.
“[T]he most intelligent and rational thing to do” is to not lump all Afghan fleeing persons together–for biden’s political reasons—without proper procedural protocol and followup.
Here’s a good governmental 2024 report on some of the flaws in Biden’s “Operation Allies Welcome” initiative:
as well as Sen. Grassley;s warning six months ago
Thanks anyway.
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/grassley-shines-light-on-biden-administrations-failure-to-vet-afghan-evacuees
https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2024-05/OIG-24-24-May24.pdf
Here’s a good governmental 2024 report on some of the flaws in Biden’s “Operation Allies Welcome” initiative: as well as Sen. Grassley;s warning six months ago
That magnificently explains away the populist theory of “Screw ’em, we’re leaving, we can’t guarantee that every single one Biden loaded on a plane worked for us, and besides they’re no further use now that were gone”?
And therefore, there’s not a single scintilla of difference between them – they’re all identical clones! Just like all lawyers are clones of Jack Smith, James Comey, Merrick Garland, etc! Where will we find you if we decide to proceed with Shakespeare’s advice that “First we kill all the lawyers”? Handing out rope – or dangling and kicking your life out at the end of a rope?
No need to think me for showing up, lin. Thank YOU for showing up to serve beside all the rest of us who went there and had the assistance of those terps, lin. Maybe we shared some dirt on one of your deployments over there. Then we can ask you why you want to throw your terps and mine under the both the Taliban and emotional populist buses.
Ha ha. “No need to think me for showing up.” I bet she doesn’t think you at all, clown. Looks like she beat you with reason, while you flailed about trying to make yourself a hero,
Ha ha. “No need to think me for showing up.” I bet she doesn’t think you at all, clown. Looks like she beat you with reason, while you flailed about trying to make yourself a hero
Ooohhh… you’ve been promoted from your previous job of sorting shyte with your bare hands to being hired to write rebuttals by performing as a spelling Nazi.
If your comment serving as her rebuttal is supposedly her “beating me with reason”, and you serving as an example of reason, she better go hire somebody better than you and the shyte coming out of that extra anus in your face to do her rebuttals.
Trump made the withdrawal chaos a 100% certainty. Keep in mind that one of the last military acts there was a US rocket attack on a family trying to deliver water. Nothing says loving like killing innocent civilians.
Trump bought this result by releasing 5,000 terrorists from prison along with their commander in the last months of the Trump presidency.
Trump made the withdrawal chaos a 100% certainty.
What is a certainty is that Democrat Communist Useless Idiots will always lie, deny, deflect and attempt to rewite history, whether in hopes of salvaging Biden, Klobuchar or any other corrupt and feckless Democrat.
If you can pry your two brain cells apart from the headlock they have each other in, point out just ONE of the provisions of Trump’s Doha Agreement that the Taliban agreed to comply to BEFORE America and our allies withdrawing from Afghanistan. Just ONE.
Should be easy even for a Commie Useless Idiot (unless they got their education in the Chicago public school system or Harvard) to read – they made it only four pages long so the 7th century savages of the Taliban and al Queda could understand it.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-S-PURL-gpo132866/pdf/GOVPUB-S-PURL-gpo132866.pdf
Trump can’t handle a remodel of the house he’s living in. Tacky Home Depot decorations with a spritz of gold spray paint, glued to the walls? Demolished the East Wing with no plan to replace it. For every statement Trump has made there is often, somewhere, an anti-statement that he also made.
Trump had no specific knowledge of Afghan refugees – he simply dislikes brown people.
AMY is another Left Wing Woke Radical Dem Senator who has no idea what the real facts/situation are. She has TDS, Trump on/in her head. She simply hates Trump/MAGA and anything not Left Wing. Bottom Line she is a Babbling Idiot.
Statistics in the hands of politicians are a dangerous thing. It is useful to be skeptical no matter the side. Do your own research.
Statistics in the hands of politicians are a dangerous thing. On the other hand, statistics in the hands of conservatives is dangerous, because they are uneducated.
Un-like you
DustOff,
Oh, I do believe she is educated. Just like Klobuchar’s epic face plant, education does not equate to intelligence. As the annony moron puts on full display for all to see. Everyday.
education does not equate to intelligence…. thank you for pointing that out. Your buddy Dustoff claims 2 “collage” degrees. And still needs a spell checker.
You’re the home schooled pig farmer. Right?
If that is you’re best retort. Try again….
Hey………………………….
How many lives have you saved with the education you have?
UpstateFarmer – unfortunately intelligence does not equate to critical thinking.
The most important factor in the quality of decisions that people make is “having skin in the game”
It is one of many reasons that free markets work – and are self correcting in almost all regards.
And virtually every other arrangment we have come up with does NOT work.
Klobuchar is well educated, she is likely intelligent, she managed to get elected to the Senate.
Her staff are also likely intelligent and educated people, yet they made an error that even a 6 yr old with no math can identify on a chart.
We saw something similar with Covid – there is no doubt that the public health experts that got everything wrong about Covid from the start were highly educated, many were even highly intelligent.
So why were they so wrong on things that are not that difficult to get right ?
One of the biggest clues is how they behaved in their own lives.
We had public health directors such as Levine in PA or others in NY and elsewhere ordering seniors into homes after being Treated for Covid while removing their own familiy members.
We think of the French Laundry story involving newsome as evidence of hypocracy.
But it is also evidence that All of those at the French Laundry with him understood that they were highly unlikely to get covid and die from a night out at the French Laundry.
The behavior of the left in their own lives is not merely evidence of hypocracy.
It is evidence that they are capable of critical thinking – WHEN the decisions are about their own lives.
The story is a bout a chart, this guy talks about a restaurant. So, unfortunately intelligence does not equate to critical thinking.
Trump was in charge of the Covid Pandemic response. He failed to establish national standards besides “it’s no worse than the flu” and “can we inject bleach”. He allowed a camp fire to rage into a forest fire and then failed to get re-elected. If local health directors made errors it was from lack of any guidance from the Trump Administration.
ATS – Klobuchar is purportedly very well educated – yet this was an error someone without any mathematics should have been able to avoid.
We would all hope that more education would make us better at critical thinking.
But for so many of us that is not proving to be true.
Klobuchar failed the “Are you smarter than a 6yr old” test.
And so have you.
I recently saw Amy Klobuchar referred to as one of the “less dumb” Democrats. She, apparently, does not fall into that category. She appeals to the very lazy and very dumb wing of the populace that simply wants to hate any political opponent. Those voters, who constantly re-elect empty vessels like Klobuchar, Walz, Swalwell, Schiff, Schumer, AOC, Omar, Tlaib and the rest of the hate-filled, empty-headed mob, are the real problem.
It wasn’t an error. Social media managers know very well people generally look at the rising line and never look at the X or Y axis.
Honestly, I suspect that the chart was made by someone on her staff and the senator didn’t even bother looking at the x axis. Nevermind that this graph is complete nonsense. Is it including only those people who have past-due utility balances, but not including all the people that are paid up? I suspect the answer to that is “yes”. So the chart is saying “If you are past-due on your utility bill, you’re probably even more past-due than you were before”, but what percentage of the total are past due? Is that number going up or down? Are there regional differences? Is the problem nationwide or clustered in certain areas?
(However, in our largely siloed news market, many citizens will receive such claims without seriously reviewing the underlying chart or data.) Exactly – and thus the rationale for the Seditious Six video. It was meant as a bell such as for Pavlov’s dogs. Her base was already in harmony with her statements and this is just part of a propaganda package meant to manipulate rather than inform and we all know that.
what’s the point of the parentheses? The article is a bout a chart and you babble about a video?
You truly are dense.
Exactly. The hallmark of a good politician is the ability to brazenly lie with a straight face.
Confirmation bias is a multi-billion dollar industry, although we usually refer to it as CNN, Fox News, MSNOW, the Washington Post, the New York Times, umpty-nine gazillion podcasts, etc.
*. Klobuchar– “See me lie and I have charts to prove I’m lying”.
Huge round of applause from drooling horde with raspy voices saying, “We love lies. More, more!”
Kafka’s dates were?
^^^^ if one disected the tiny 1 year area of the graph it moves up at the same rate as the larger graph. Technically she didn’t lie. She simply didn’t point to the entire graph and say the trend continues as any honest person would do.
It’s deception and deceptions are lies. Deceptions are meant to deceive. Presumably she knew better. Perhaps she’ll clarify unlike Jasmine Crockett and Jeffrey Epstein. The motto must be—> never admit you’re wrong.
Beyond human 😑 expression.
it has been my observation that the average Democrat will not question what they are told by their leaders. The Democrat base basically gives them permission to lie to them, and they do so knowing they won’t be questioned.
Hence the popularity of “Occupy Democrats,” which tells a certain demographic what they want to hear. Unfortunately, it’s short on facts but long on hatred.
It works to win elections, though. The Democrats are going to win TN-07 next Tuesday because they are motivated and have already voted, while the GOP voters will stay home on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
We often said that there were three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damn lies and what software vendors promise.
Your assumption is that Klobuchar cares about accuracy. I suspect she’s just preaching to the choir and knows that the voters she cares about will like her message true or not.
she’s simply relying on her minions in the MSM and social media to spread misinformation. And here I thought that the D’s were opposed to misinformation. Oh, that’s right, the only misinformation is that which goes against their message
If Amy “proved” anything it’s that Democrats are accomplished liars.
The average IQ of a Democrat is about 80.
Democrat voter IQs are either under 80 or over 135. Some of the most intelligent people are really dumb about some things.
andrewp111,
“Some of the most intelligent people are really dumb about some things.”
Yep. Knew a guy with a PhD in computer science who did not know how to change a tire or that a cow had to given birth to a calve to lactate.
The ration of conservatives to progessives to libertarians in the general population is about 3:2:1
Most measures of IQ by politics commonly group libertarians with Conservatives and result in Co0nservatives having about 1 2pt IQ advantage over progressives. But those IQ by politics studies that do not groups libertarians with conservatives result in the oposite result – with conservatives on the whole having a 2p-t lower IQ score For an IQ swing of 4pts for the largest group by political identity to swing 4 points depending on the inclusion of the group that is 1/6 or less of the population requires the IQ of libertarians to be substantially higher than both. Most studies place the average IQ of libertarians at 120.
But it gets worse. With nearly all traits that show small variances in the norms – we she HUGE differences in the tails.
This is why blacks dominate most athletics and are disproportionately represented in music.
Or mathematically illiterate…