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Thursday, September 16, 2010

So you want to be simpleminded?


The world is very complex. It generally pays to look at things from many different perspectives drawing upon history, data and theory. My experience is that very few people are willing to do that, especially in a political discussion. Well, if anyone insists on being simpleminded...

via redstate

h/t instapundit

2 comments:

AVeryRoughRoadAhead said...

That graph'll flip to being kind to Democrats in about two years, as the GOP takes control of the House in '11, and unemployment still continues to climb in '11 and '12.

The reality is that the time frame depicted is too short to provide good supporting evidence of anything.

Howard said...

Rough,

Look at the title of the post - I think you missed the point. I routinely encounter "analysis" that doesn't even scratch the surface of a matter. The presenter is very proud of their economic and political talking point, but it is no better than the graph presented here. This is just a tweak. Even when we think we have a meaningful amount of data, it's best not to be so sure.