Whether it’s the Spotlight Effect or any of a dozen other biases, the fact is that people are remarkably bad at estimating. Remember the survey wherein progressives were asked how many unarmed black people were killed by police each year?
Overall, nearly half of surveyed liberals [sic] (44 percent) estimated roughly between 1,000 and 10,000 unarmed black men were killed…
The hard number is 27, and of that 27, a vetting of the details may distinguish which were justified and which were wrong.
While 27 may be bad enough, when the spotlight shines too hard on an issue, it creates a false impression that it’s far more pervasive than it is. It’s not that wrongful police shootings aren’t horrible, but that they are blown grossly out of proportion.
As it turns out, this isn’t limited to cop killings. We are shockingly bad at our estimation of most demographics.
And the list continues.
There are two critical points to be made of our national misapprehension of demographics. First, we can’t fix problems when our grasp of the problem is wildly skewed by grossly over or under-inflated estimates of the demographic affected. We perceive a fantasy problem rather than the depth of an actual problem.
Second, we, as a nation, have dedicated ourselves to addressing issues that are believed to be of such broad impact that it involves a substantial portion of our population. It doesn’t. And not even the minority involved has a firm grasp on its own demographic.
Black Americans estimate that, on average, Black people make up 52% of the U.S. adult population; non-Black Americans estimate the proportion is roughly 39%, closer to the real figure of 12%.
This doesn’t mean racial discrimination isn’t a serious issue, but that its extent, and efforts to address it, are premised on a wildly false belief that a privileged minority is oppressing a majority. We can’t solve problems when our understanding of the problem is so absurdly wrong. If you care enough to try to fix societal problems, the best place to start is with facts and a firm grounding in reality.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Your last sentence reminds me of my similar words of wisdom no one listens to: In most matters, facts are not the last word: but in most matters, facts should be the first word.
I’m glad I remind you of you.
The problem is compounded by the active denial, not only of the facts, but even of the relevance of the facts. Particularly in your opening example, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen people expressly reject even the importance of the actual numbers in favor of their feelings.
The nature of secular religion is that it’s a matter of faith rather than facts. You can’t reason with faith.
The notions of “facts” and “reality” today are not what they used to be.
30% of Americans live in NYC, 30% live in Texas, and 32% live in California? I really want to see the methodology that got those numbers. I mean, I know Americans are bad at geography and math, but estimating that 92% of Americans live in Texas, California, and NYC would be awfully disappointing coming from 10 year old child. It’s one thing to guess that the community or culture that is visible to you is representative, but another to look at most of the country and say that no one lives there.
I looked at the Yougov page, but the the phrase “weighted responses” is awfully vague.
Of course the math is irrational. That’s the point.
On the one hand these are a composite, so probably few if any people share all of those estimates.
On the other hand they must be through the roof regionally if these are the averages.
People aren’t born stupid; they work very hard to achieve that status, mostly by sitting on their lazy butts watching TV. When every story you see on the “news” is about a gay transgender native american muslim of color who lives in NYC, why wouldn’t you overestimate the percentages, especially if you never do any research and only believe whatever the idiot box says.
40% are military veterans… so this would mean that, since almost all of the WWII vets are dead, over 120 million Americans served at some point in one of the Korean, Vietnam, first and second Iraq Wars, and Afghanistan. Do people think of the implications of percentages and numbers when they give an estimate?