CASE STUDY: Why did Norris believe that grossly false claim?

TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2023

The conduct of blue tribe elites: Why in the world did Michele Norris believe that grossly inaccurate claim?

The claim in question wasn't simply inaccurate; it was grossly inaccurate. So why in the world did Michele Norris believe it?

The claim appeared in a column in the Washington Post. Why in the world did a high-ranking, elite mainstream journalist believe the highlighted claim?

NORRIS (12/9/20): We are not just tussling with historical wrongs. A recent study of White medical students found that half believed that Black patients had a higher tolerance for pain and were more likely to prescribe inadequate medical treatment as a result.

"A recent study of White medical students found that half believed that Black patients had a higher tolerance for pain?" 

That was Norris' account of one part of the UVa study in question—the part of the study in which These White Medical Students Today were asked if they believed this inaccurate statement:

Blacks’ nerve endings are less sensitive than whites’

According to Norris, half the (white) medical students in question had said they believed that statement. In fact, the recent study to which Norris referred showed nothing dimly like that. 

What did the UVa study claim? The actual study only claimed that 6.7% of the very white medical students believed that inaccurate claim—and by our reckoning, it isn't clear that any of these extremely white medical students said they believed the false claim!

At any rate, the study in question didn't claim anything like what Norris said. Why in the world did a highly experienced, elite mainstream journalist believe the grossly inaccurate claim she placed in the Washington Post?

Why in the world did Norris believe it? You're asking an excellent question. Presumably, the answer to your excellent question starts with Norris's source. 

As you can see in her column, Norris offered a link in support of her baldly inaccurate claim. She linked to an essay by "Janice Sabin, PhD, MSW," an apparently credible academic at the University of Washington.  

Sabin's essay had been published by The Association of American Medical Colleges, an apparently credible academic organization. With that in mind, these are the headline Norris encountered when she reviewed Sabin's essay:

How we fail black patients in pain
Half of white medical trainees believe such myths as black people have thicker skin or less sensitive nerve endings than white people. An expert looks at how false notions and hidden biases fuel inadequate treatment of minorities’ pain.

Does our nation's medical establishment "fail black patients in pain?" Stating the obvious, that's a very important question.

We aren't qualified to assess that widely-asserted belief. But those are the headlines which sat atop the essay which Norris used as her source.

At a glance, those headlines might seem to support the wildly inaccurate claim Norris made in her column. Then again, it isn't quite clear that they do.

Those headlines do not explicitly say that half the white medical trainees believed the one specific "myth" about black people's nerve endings. Those headlines may merely intend to say that half the medical students believe some such myths, not all such myths. 

In short, if Norris was working from those ambiguous headlines, she may have been reading them wrong.

Those ambiguous headlines don't necessarily support the wildly inaccurate claim Norris made in her column. What did Sabin say in her actual text? Directly beneath those ambiguous headlines, here's how her essay started:

SABIN (1/8/20): “Black people’s nerve endings are less sensitive than white people’s.” “Black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s.” “Black people’s blood coagulates more quickly than white people’s.”

These disturbing beliefs are not long-forgotten 19th-century relics. They are notions harbored by far too many medical students and residents as recently as 2016. In fact, half of trainees surveyed held one or more such false beliefs, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. I find it shocking that 40% of first- and second-year medical students endorsed the belief that “black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s.”

We'll start by noting an intriguing fact. In the actual text of her actual essay, Professor Sabin never says that the "medical trainees" surveyed in the 2016 study were all white medical trainees.

Someone put that accurate fact into the headlines to Sabin's essay. But for whatever peculiar reason, the actual text of the actual essay doesn't include that fact. 

At any rate, Professor Sabin said she found it "shocking" that so many of These Medical Students Today hold such "disturbing beliefs" as the three she listed—false beliefs which might otherwise seem to be "19th century relics." 

The excitement is general in that passage as the professor expresses her shock. That said, Sabin plainly doesn't say that half the medical students believed each of those shocking false beliefs. She merely says that half the medical students in question "held one or more such beliefs."

At this point, let's stop to critique the journalistic skills of Michele Noris. Also, let's stop to critique the skills of Professor Sabin herself.

Norris apparently scanned those ambiguous headlines and misunderstood what she'd read. Even in the ambiguous headlines, Professor Sabin (or her proxy) never explicitly said that half the medical students in question believed the inaccurate claim about black people's nerve endings—about Black patients "having a higher tolerance for pain."

In the actual text of her actual essay, it's clear that Professor Sabin isn't making that claim. Did Norris actually read Sabin's essay? If she did, did she understand what Sabin explicitly said?

We don't know how to answer those questions. Concerning Norris and her journalistic procedures, the following also seems to be true:

Apparently, Norris never looked at the actual UVa study to fact-check her (grossly inaccurate) claim. If she had reviewed the actual UVa study, she would have seen that the actual study made no claim which even dimly resembles the claim she put into print.

She simply put the claim in print—a claim which is grossly inaccurate. Two years later, Norris' grossly inaccurate claim remains uncorrected in the archives of the Washington Post.

How strong are the journalistic practices of our highest-ranking mainstream journalists? In the case of Norris, she apparently misunderstood what she Sabin had said, and she apparently never checked the actual data in the UVa study itself.

If she had checked the actual data in the actual study, she would have found that the actual study only claimed that 16 out of 222 medical students believed the specific statement in question. And uh-oh:

She also would have seen that, given the way the study was conducted, it's possible that none of the students actually said that they believed that particular claim. This brings us to the academic skills of Professor Sabin herself.

Professor Sabin said she was shocked, shocked by the archaic false beliefs held by These White Medical Trainees Today. 

She didn't say that half these white medical students believed the claim about black patients and pain. But she did accept the overall assessment offered by the authors of the study, in which half the white medical students believed at least one such "disturbing belief."

In our view, Professor Sabin is perhaps a bit easily shocked—perhaps performatively so. That said, she was less than fully perspicacious in her account of what the UVa study can legitimately be said to have found.

What can the study be said to have found? Given its slippery research methods, it's amazingly hard to say.

We'll revisit that point tomorrow. At any rate, the easily shocked Professor Sabin never described the slippery way These [White] Medical Students Today got wrangled into the camp of those who continue to hold disturbing, 19th century beliefs about matters of race. 

In fact, as we explained in this report, it isn't clear that any of the white medical students actually said that they believed the false claim Norris highlighted. Professor Sabin blew past this methodological problem as she, perhaps a bit performatively, expressed her sense of shock.

What did those medical students believe? Given the study's design, it's very hard to say.

That said, Norris plainly misstated what Professor Sabin actually said. Tomorrow, we'll look again at the various ways Sabin may have been misstating the actual findings of the actual study itself.

Norris is a major blue tribe journalist. Sabin is a major blue tribe academic.

Sadly, our journalistic and academic elites often seem to possess very weak analytical skills. They often seem to engage in very lazy procedures as they conduct a headlong pursuit of Preferred Tribal Storyline.

The logicians have walked off their posts, leaving us at the mercy of those other flawed elites. We've been telling you this for years at this point, and your lizard has never stopped saying that we're wrong, just oh so wrong.

Tomorrow: In service to tribal Storyline, No Thumbs On The Scales Left Behind


32 comments:

  1. Somerby says:

    “Blacks’ nerve endings are less sensitive than whites’

    According to Norris, half the (white) medical students in question had said they believed that statement.”

    There is no mention in Norris’ article about nerve endings. She does not cite this specific question, nor any specific question. Anyone who wishes can verify this by looking at her actual article.

    What Norris said:

    “A recent study of White medical students found that half believed that Black patients had a higher tolerance for pain and were more likely to prescribe inadequate medical treatment as a result.”

    (This is the only reference to the study in Norris’ article).

    Here is what the study says:

    “Study 2 … found that half of a sample of white medical students and residents endorsed these beliefs [false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites ]. Moreover, participants who endorsed these beliefs rated the black (vs. white) patient’s pain as lower and made less accurate treatment recommendations.”

    Norris says that half of the medical students believed that Black patients had a “higher tolerance for pain”, whereas the study says that half of the medical students rated Black patients “pain as lower”. Norris is rewording the study slightly, but it is not a fundamental error or crazy claim based on the results of the study.

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    1. A person more blunt than I might say that Somerby is lying about what Norris said.

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    2. MH - I'm puzzzled - what did TDH "lie" about. He accurately quotes what Norris wrote; his quote is the same as your quote. I re-read the study. The study measure 222 medical students and residents' responses to 11 statements relating to differences between whites and blacks. 7 of the statements are characterized as "false" while 4 are characterized as "true." One of the false statements is that blacks have less sensitive nerve endings (which correlates to blacks being less sensitive to pain). According to Study 2, less than 10% of respondents gave a false response to this question. There was another statement that blacks have thicker skin than whites, which could also relate to blacks' sensitivity to pain, though this isn't as clear - a significantly greater percentage of respondents gave a "false" answer to this one. Other "false" statements seem unrelated to sensitivity to pain, e.g., that blacks have a better sense of smell than whites. It should be noted that 4 of the 11 statements about differences between blacks and whites are deemed true - one example being that blacks have denser bones than whites. The study finds that 50% of the 222 respondents got at least one of these questions wrong - not that 50% percent got the one about pain wrong. Where the study really loses credibility is that it lumps together as "wrong", responses that the statement was "definitely true", "probably true" or "possibly true." There is a big difference between saying that something is possibly true than saying it is probably or definitely true. Bottom line is that according to the study, it is possible that no respondent thought that the statement about nerve endings was probably or definitely true. TDH here is criticizing Norris's statement that the study showed that half the respondents asserted that blacks had a higher tolerance for pain which is plainly false, a gross misstatement of what the study says. Now, you defend Norris - you claim that the study says basically the same thing that she does - that "half of the medical students rated Black patients' "pain as lower." Where does the study say any such thing? You seem to be (wishfully thinking) that the report says that - true, the study does say 50% of the students got at least one question wrong (not that 50% got the "nerve endings" question wrong; less than 10% of them did - and that's using the bogus standard that a "possibly true" response is the same as a "definitely true response). The study does indicate that those who got at least one answer wrong were more likely to underestimate the pain of a hypothetical black patient than a hypothetical white patient. (The hypothetical black patients were given "black" names like Deshawn, the white ones "white names like Brendan". Interestingly the 50% of students who got all the answers right, on average underestimated the white hypothetical patient's pain as compared to hypothetical blacks' pain - as the study observes, they showed bias against the "white" patients. If you can show where what I say here is incorrect, please do. If you don't, I'll assume you are unable to.

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    3. Ac, I will repeat my original observation: Somerby says
      “Blacks’ nerve endings are less sensitive than whites’

      According to Norris, half the (white) medical students in question had said they believed that statement.”

      Norris says no such thing. She does not mention anything about nerve endings. She does not cite a single specific question or statement from the study.

      It is a lie to say that Norris says that half of the students believed that specific statement. It is a blatantly false assertion from Somerby.

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    4. Also, AC. You said
      “you claim that the study says basically the same thing that she does - that "half of the medical students rated Black patients' "pain as lower." Where does the study say any such thing?”

      You claim I am lying. Ok, then.

      I am quoting from the study, AC. It’s in the abstract. It’s very close to the top.

      https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1516047113

      Do you know how to go to a web page and search for a phrase, such as “pain as lower?” If you can’t, then I really can’t help you.

      Here is the first part of the abstract, just in case you can’t find this yourself.

      “ Abstract

      Black Americans are systematically undertreated for pain relative to white Americans. We examine whether this racial bias is related to false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites (e.g., “black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s skin”). Study 1 documented these beliefs among white laypersons and revealed that participants who more strongly endorsed false beliefs about biological differences reported lower pain ratings for a black (vs. white) target. Study 2 extended these findings to the medical context and found that half of a sample of white medical students and residents endorsed these beliefs. Moreover, participants who endorsed these beliefs rated the black (vs. white) patient’s pain as lower and made less accurate treatment recommendations.

      Jesus, AC.

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    5. As a final note, AC, you are trying to shift the discussion away from my original comment, which was directed at Somerby’s attack on Norris, towards a critique of the study itself. Whatever you think of the study, it remains true that Norris correctly summarized its conclusions.

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    6. The abstract doesn't exactly say "half of the medical students rated Black patients' "pain as lower."

      Does it?

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    7. Mh I'm going to type this for you very slowly so you understand:

      B a s e r a t e f a l l a c y .

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    8. Mh, I do think the study says what you think it says. Additionally, the abstract itself is not especially unambiguous.

      My understanding is that half of the medical school participants supported one or more of the false statements. Only something like 6% of the participants believed the specific claim that blacks have less sensitive nerve endings.

      So Norris' claim "a recent study of White medical students found that half believed that Black patients had a higher tolerance for pain" is not supported by the study, at all.

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    9. You can just tell from the way mh writes that he smells good.

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    10. MS - I appreciate you responding, but you need to read more carefully, and not let your prejudices influence your conclusions. Here's where you are wrong: (1) TDH didn't say that blacks nerve endings are less sensitive than whites. That was one of the false propositions the students were asked to respond to in the study. (2) You misread the Abstract. The abstract says that 50 percent of the students got ONE of the 11 propositions wrong - not that 50% of the students incorrectly answered that blacks were less sensitive to pain (or had less sensitive nerve endings, which is basically the same thing). The nerve endings proposition was the only one out of 11 related to black sensitivity to pain, and less than 10% answered the nerve ending one wrong, as anon 3:41 also points out. (Wrong based on the study's bogus equating of "possibly true" with ""probably" or "definitely" true. (3) you make a big deal that Norris characterized the survey as stating that 50% of the students answered that blacks "had a higher tolerance of pain" while TDH paraphrases her as claiming 50% percent of med students think blacks have "more sensitive nerve endings." You think that this is a big falsehood by TDH - as you state, the study didn't have a proposition that blacks have a higher pain tolerance. But the prop. in the student survey that blacks had more sensitive nerve ending is the only one that relates to pain tolerance - having more sensitive nerve endings is synonymous with having higher tolerance of pain. TDH's reasoning on this is sound, it's pretty bad that you'd call it a "lie"; (4) if you read the tables you will see that only about 6% or 7% of the students/residents answered that blacks had more sensitive nerve endings (again using the study's bogus inclusion of "possibly agree in the category. (5) The Abstract says that students who endorsed ANY of the false beliefs were more likely to underestimate black pain and make less accurate treatment recommendations (whether they would have in real life is impossible to determine from the study). Except for that one "false" belief about nerve endings, none of the other false beliefs related to tolerance of pain or making accurate treatment for pain recommendations. On the other hand, the study observes that students who didn't express any "false beliefs" about black/white physical disparities did the opposite - overestimated the white hypothetical patient's tolerance of pain (the study postulates why that might be the case) (6) although maybe not emphasized by me, I agree - the principal issue in TDH's post is whether Norris got it wrong - which she did, egregiously. (7) I didn't call you a "liar" - I said you were wrong. There is a distinct difference.

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    11. Somerby incorrectly quoted Norris and attributed to her things that she did not say. Somerby also misquoted the study (saying it had only white subjects). Somerby also entirely omitted any reference to the part of the study that linked incorrect beliefs to inaccurate pain treatment -- the most important part of the study, and instead quibbled over how the rating scales were used.

      This makes Somerby a huge fool saying things about the study that are wrong and that you cannot trust. And he lied about mistakes that Norris did not make.

      There is a tactic that involves confusing people until they are willing to accept what you say. mh has been patient and as clear as can be and you respond with a bunch of blather that requires work to debunk and fails to contradict anything mh said. That is dishonest because it obscures rather than clarifying any points of concern, resulting in no progress toward mutual understanding.

      I already knew that I don't like you AC/MA, but this is an example that convinces me you are not sincere in any of your questions and are merely trying to create a smokescreen for Somerby's attack on Norris. No one can be as stupid as you have been. It is a waste of time for anyone to deal with any more of these bullshit objections you are raising.

      Anyone here can (1) read what Norris wrote in the original source, (2) read what Somerby has been saying about Norris, (3) read the PNAS article itself, and then compare these and reach a conclusion about who is telling the truth about what the article says. Hint: it isn't AC/MA.

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    12. anon 8:00 p.m. - by all means, anyone who cares to, should read the UVA study and decide for themselves whether my (over-long) posts make sense. You don't provide any proof of one thing I say that is incorrect; it's all conclusory and ad hominem statements, MAGA type reasoning. I'm so sorry you don't like me, especially since you don't even know me. But, 3 points (10 how did TDH misquote Norris? what did Norris actually say, if it was different that TDH's short quote? (2) as to the part of the study that TDH didn't address, about any correlation between the wrong-answering med students to "inaccurate" pain treatment. I actually addressed that exact point myself in my above post. That TDH didn't address it himself - so what, he doesn't have to address everything, and in any event the correlation is flimsy at best. I notice you don't mention that the study also linked "correct" beliefs to inaccurate pain treatment. By your logic, that makes you dishonest.

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    13. 12:57 PM - No, actually, she didn't. Norris incorrectly summarized the study's conclusions as Somerby accurately pointed out.

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  2. “In the actual text of her actual essay, Professor Sabin never says that the "medical trainees" surveyed in the 2016 study were all white medical trainees.”

    From the study:
    “We focus on white participants given the historical context of black–white relations, particularly in the medical context (20–25). Analyses for nonwhite participants can be found in the SI Text for the interested reader.

    (Italics mine.)

    Why does Somerby feel the need to distort things so much?

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  3. Bob,
    You lie like a Republican.

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  4. "Did Norris actually read Sabin's essay? If she did, did she understand what Sabin explicitly said?"

    Did Somerby actually read the PNAS article? If he did, did he understand what it said?

    Having encountered this kind of mistake frequently in Somerby's essays, I think he not only read the PNAS article but he ignored it, instead accusing Norris of making mistakes she did not make. It is Somerby who is wrong about the content of the article, and his errors are being used to attack a reporter who has said nothing inaccurate.

    This is sloppy at best, but dishonest at worst. Since this has happened before, in manufactured complains against other journalists, I think it must be dishonest. The burden is on Somerby to check his facts before accusing Norris.

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    1. anon 10:59 - what is the "PNAS" article? Sabin's article or the UVA study? Read my (quite lengthy comment above at 12:17 - if I mischaracterize the UVa study in any material way, please point out how in understandable English, preferably).

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    2. Somerby has linked to this: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1516047113

      You could probably find out quickly that PNAS stands for “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, and that the UVa study was published there.

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    3. MH, thanks for explaining that.

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  5. "The claim in question wasn't simply inaccurate; it was grossly inaccurate. So why in the world did Michele Norris believe it?"

    Okay, dear Bob; read and learn:
    1. Miss Norris simply does her dembot job.
    2. Her dembottery (as well as all other dembottery) is not "simply inaccurate" or "grossly inaccurate". It has nothing whatsoever to do with accuracy. It's dembottery. Okay?

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  6. Norris’s statement is ambiguous. It could be read to mean that white medical students believed that black patients were more likely to prescribe inadequate medical treatment.

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    1. Yes, an editor should have spotted that.

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  7. “ What did the UVa study claim?”

    Norris links to the study in her article. The link is contained in her paragraph devoted to the study (the link is available by clicking the highlighted text “half believed.”)

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  8. It seems to me a more honest and fruitful approach to critiquing Norris’ opinion piece is to try to answer these questions:

    Are (or were) black people hesitant to get the Covid vaccine?

    If so, does Norris offer a correct explanation? Is her explanation reasonable?

    If the honest answer is “no” to any of these questions, then you have rebutted Norris’ opinion.

    The wrong approach is to invent something she did not say, attack her for it, and then tell anyone who disagrees with the blogger that it is their “lizard brain” dictating their disagreement. These are dishonest tactics capped off with a sub-grade-school taunt.

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    1. He was exactly correct. You have a bias against him and your lizard brain led you to misread the report and waste your time on a pointless disquisition expounding on your misreading. Once again, he was completely and totally correct.

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    2. Michelle Norris did not say that half of those white medical students in that UVa study believed that “Blacks’ nerve endings are less sensitive than whites.” That is a fabrication by Somerby. Why would you ignore such blatant falsehoods? Your lizard is unable to recognize Somerby’s falsehoods. Is he only able to rebut Norris by lying about what she says?

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    3. @6:30 illustrates the wrong way to rebut anything.

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    4. Somerby didn't say Michelle Norris said half of those white medical students in that UVa study believed that “Blacks’ nerve endings are less sensitive than whites.” therefore, it's not a fabrication. You're really really really daft, aren't you?

      On the bright side, you're dumb enough to be a major liberal journalist or academic.

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    5. Mh: acma explained above in a very kind and respectful way your misreading of this post and misunderstanding of the study itself. Check it out when you get a chance.

      Once again, Bob was dead on correct about the study, the misreading by the journalist and the reaction of your lizard. Have a good one.

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  9. Didn’t Norris stand out as a good person when Bob started writing about this when “The Empire Strikes Back” came out?

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    1. She stood out as a good, decent person, yes.

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