WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2024
Statistics can be hard: In fairness, it doesn't exactly matter. That said, it's the kind of journalistic performance we're always puzzled by.
We refer to a news report in the New York Times—a report about a recent shift in student demographics at several high-end colleges.
Headline included, the news report starts like this:
At 2 Elite Colleges, Shifts in Racial Makeup After Affirmative Action Ban
A drop in the share of Black first-year students at two elite colleges this school year has provided an early sign that the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action could have an impact on racial diversity, at least at some of the nation’s more selective schools.
At Amherst College, a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts, the share of Black students decreased sharply—by eight percentage points—for this year’s entering class, according to data released on Thursday. It decreased more moderately at Tufts University, a larger private college near Boston, according to that school’s data.
Set aside whatever opinion you may have about that Supreme Court decision. We aren't discussing affirmative action today. Instead, we're discussing the frequent oddness of high-end American journalism.
Statistics can be hard! We think the highlighted passage from this same article helps establish that point. We've focused on Amherst only:
The percentage of Black students entering Amherst this fall dropped to 3 percent from 11 percent last year, and at Tufts, it dropped to 4.7 percent from 7.3 percent. Black students at the University of Virginia declined to 7 percent of the entering class compared to 7.9 percent last year.
White students entering Amherst rose to 39 percent of the class from 33 percent, and those entering Tufts went up to 49.3 percent from 46.8 percent. The percentage of Asian American students rose slightly to 20 percent from 18 percent at Amherst and slipped to 19.7 percent from 20.3 percent at Tufts.
The percentage of Hispanic students dropped to 8 percent from 12 percent at Amherst, and there was a similar decline at M.I.T. But confounding the picture, the share of Hispanic students actually rose slightly at Tufts and the University of Virginia. And at U.Va., the percentage of white and Asian students declined very slightly.
Set aside any thoughts you have about the suitability of affirmative action as part of college admissions. Instead, join us in wondering where all the Amherst kids went.
You can do the ciphering yourself! According to the article, the student body at Amherst this year totals up like this:
Amherst student population:
White: 39%
Black: 3%
Asian-American: 20%
Hispanic: 8%
Those numbers total 70 percent. Our question would be this:
What have they done with The Amherst College 30 (Percent)?
Please understand:
We're sure the question can be answered. We're sure the answer exists somewhere online. Yesterday, we started to Google around to find it, but then we decided to stop.
Our point is somewhat different! In our view, it's strange to think that the Times would publish those data without noticing that a fairly obvious question might seem to arise—a question which night occur to the newspaper's admittedly brilliant subscribers.
What have they done with the Amherst 30? Also, riddle us this:
Should statistics be this hard?
For extra credit only: We were also puzzled by the puzzlement Bret Stephens expressed in this week's Conversation with Gail Collins. We refer to the highlighted passage:
This Is Not What Trump Had in Mind
[...]
Gail: OK, we’re going to be arguing about this nearly every week, so I’m taking a temporary pass. For a more narrow Harris query: What did you think of her CNN interview?
Bret: She was likable and warm and didn’t do herself any obvious harm. But she leaned heavily on vacuous slogans, like her “new way forward.” I’m struggling to understand how she can present herself as a candidate of change while also defending Joe Biden’s record. What would you suggest she do?
For the record, Stephens is aggressively anti-Trump. Also, we may have liked Harris' performance in the CNN interview somewhat less than Stephens did, but we're puzzled by his puzzlement there.
Whatever a person may think of Candidate Harris, we think it's fairly clear what she wants to move past as she seeks that new way forward. We think she's made it fairly clear! In principle, we're thrilled by the possibility she has seemed to be holding out.
More, perhaps, tomorrow. Journalistic assessments are hard!
"admittedly brilliant subscribers", including a certain Robert Somerby, whose puzzlement about anything the partisan Bret Stephens trumpets from on high I find puzzling.
ReplyDeleteThe remaining 30% is other categories (Other or Pacific Islander, Native American) and “Decline to State” or perhaps Biracial (depending on how they allow students to describe themselves). Not all students will complete a voluntary survey. Somerby blames “statistics” but this is a data collection issue. The article’s focus was on the changes for traditional neglected and thus targeted groups, which is why they are listed.
ReplyDeleteSomerby again fails to appreciate why a reporter with a limited word count might bypass the opportunity to complicate their story with tangential details and perhaps confusing digression about the number of Pacific Islanders in Massachusetts. Reporters are not themselves admissions officers, so they are not going to talk in depth about why an applicant might call themselves “decline to state” vs biracial vs black. And to the extent that the categories on the form remain the same from year to year, they do reflect recruiting outcomes wothout affirmative action. So what IS Somerby’s beef. There is a decrease. He seems to want to dismiss that without evidence, by perhaps hinting the missing black and Hispanic students are being concealed in that 30% (without proof).
Affirmative action worked and now it doesn’t (at least for two Ivy League schools). Somerby’s complaint is deflection from that oint.
point
Delete'Somerby blames “statistics”'
DeleteHe nowhere blames statistics. When he asks 'should statistics be this hard?', he's blaming the Times for not explaining why the percents shown fail to add to 100.
Such an explanation could easily have been shown as a note near the data.
Somerby says “ Statistics can be hard! ”
DeleteAll surveys have some remainder like this. Somerby knows that and so do other readers. Asking for footnotes in news articles is specious. You go to the original data source if you care, which is cited so people can follow up. Somerby is being stupid in order to discount the data itself.
@5:44
DeleteThirty percent is not a remainder.
Many surveys have percents that add to less than 100%. Very few have surveys that add to 70%, as Somerby was discussing.
Delete@5:32
DeleteIf 30 percent includes a large percentage of Refused, that invalidates any conclusion from the data.
I explained that and why it was not problematic for an article about affirmative action changes.
DeleteMy kid, who just so happens to be the greatest thing in the universe, rejected going to Amherst (and nearby Williams), choosing instead a well known college with a picturesque campus a bit north of those schools.
DeleteTo my kid, Amherst and similar schools felt a bit too slick and overly focused on meritocracy, forcing one to drift too far from our innate human nature.
I have no doubt, upon graduating, my kid will continue to be a positive force of progress and inspiration to others; misery withers in their wake, they exude a joyous vibe, like the sun on a perfect day.
Quaker, how is the chart labeled? It should be acceptances only or offers only. It would be odd to put the refused in a single category and add them together with a bunch of ethnic group acceptances. It would be so odd that it would be considered dishonest or incompetent, which makes me doubt that is what the charge is showing.
DeleteI canceled my NY Times subscription when they attacked Biden, so I cannot read whatever Somerby is referred to behind their paywall.
The link Somerby posted leads to an article called "This is not what Trump had in mind," with a photo of Kamala Harris. Is that even the right article?
chart (not charge)
DeleteMake America Great Again is vacuous, as is Save America, especially since Biden made America greater so it needs saving from Trump. So why is Bret worth quoting?
ReplyDeleteHow dare you write "Make America Great Again is vacuous." The great Ronnie Raygun ran on the phrase and they did so much. His handlers started trickle down economics based on a sketch on a napkin. This established the plutocrat class, Republican Presidents blowing-up the deficit, defunding the commons, and crushing the middle class.
DeleteNotice that Somerby goes out of his way to say he likes Harris’s interview less than Republican Bret. Somerby never misses an opportunity to knock Harris, especially in nonspecific ways without supporting evidence, because that’s what someone planning to vote for Harris does.
ReplyDeleteYes, anybody who supports a politician must say they like every single thing that politician ever says, no matter what. Everybody knows that.
DeleteExactly, until Harris is elected. Then they can criticize. Somerby knows that. Everyone does.
DeleteOne taking Somerby’s posts at face value, one is more likely persuaded to not vote for any Dem.
DeleteFortunately, few do, even the fanboys that pretend to.
Actually, it’s anonymices who are likely to dissuade people from voting for Democrats.
DeleteAnyone with a single toe on the fence who reads “Exactly, until Harris is elected. Then they can criticize.” is going to be thinking “ugh”.
Actually 8:04, I’m a Republican, and those commenters you seem to disdain have indeed played a role in persuading me to vote for Harris (plus Trump’s vulgarity and the rogue Supreme Court).
DeleteBtw, your disdain not only also played a role, but also puts the lie to your claim, which is fairly obvious if one ponders it for a second or two.
6:27 there’s a spectrum between supporting everything about a candidate and criticizing everything about them; essentially nobody engages with the former, while Somerby comes remarkably close to the latter.
DeleteCecelia, most of the readers of this blog are not Republicans like you. They react differently to the comments here than you do. That means they are not going to be put off by Democrats commenting at a supposedly liberal blog, the way you are.
DeleteAnyone over the age of 10 understands that you root for your team, not the other guy. Somerby will never wholeheartedly support Harris because he doesn't like women. There is nothing Harris can do about that. Given that everyone knows that if you can't say something nice about your party's candidate, you say nothing at all (during an election), Somerby's refusal to follow that rule marks him as a member of the other team. This is just the latest stick on the pile of evidence that Somerby lies when he says he is liberal and not actively pushing Trump.
Anonymouse 8:15pm, so it took the anonymices AND me to convince you not to vote for Trump despite your disdain for his vulgarity and your disdain for SCOTUS (or somethin’).
DeleteNo, don’t thank me anonymices. I’m pretty sure she was in the bag from jump.
6:50/8:31 - Jeez, I thought you were kidding! You want to throw people out of the party for expressing disagreement during an election season! Wow. Just, wow!
DeleteRECOGNIZE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTS
DeleteIsolating members and penalizing them for leaving
**Seeking inappropriate loyalty to their leaders
Dishonoring the family unit
**Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
**No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.
**Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies, and persecutions.
There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.
Followers feel they can never be "good enough".
**The group/leader is always right.
The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.
Anonymouse 8:31pm, you must be new here. You have that wrong due to questionable programming on the part of some unusually sloppy anonymices.
DeleteSomerby has been accused of being a double agent long before Harris was dancing with her emotional support VP nominee., it didn’t take a woman or a village. It merely took Bob being willing to offer up his opinion unaffected by the philosophy we heard today about keeping your mouth shut till the voting is over. Not that even this is in any way accurate as to anonymouse priorities. This anonymouse comment was as deceitful as everything else they say. In your playbook, there is never an ok time for anyone to be honest as to issues. That’s why anonymices are here to police this blog.
PP is being histrionic. I cannot throw anyone out of any party, but I can say that Somerby does not behave like any actual liberal on this planet, so I believe he is lying about his political views and pushing Trump via right wing memes that he repeats here regularly.
DeleteToday, he took the trouble to softball Levin and repeat Trump's stump quotes while telling us that his view of Harris more negative than Republican Bret Stephens and he will tell us why tomorrow (or maybe not).
Somerby has been accused of supporting Trump since 2015, when Trump first came down that escalator. In 2015, Somerby said he was voting for Hillary but then he took every opportunity to criticize her, disagreed with her about many things, never defended her but always defended Trump from things like accusations that he was lying, called Stormy Daniels a grifter (repeatedly) and when Hillary lost, he couldn't say enough bad things about her and how she LOST the election because she was such a bad campaigner. Then he moved on to criticizing Biden in 2020, calling Harris mediocre, objecting to her repetition of Dept of Labor stats about the gender gap, and defending Trump on everything, from his impeachments to his attempted coup. Now Somerby is back attacking Harris again, while still pretending to be liberal.
DeleteSomerby didn't even say anything bad about Harris today. He said he didn't like her interview as well as Republican Bret Stephens did. Somerby never said why. To date, the only thing positive I've seen him say about Harris is that she's pretty and smiles a lot. Even when he said that, he made it sound like criticism. In fact, it sounds like JD Vance's ideal woman.
Anonymouse 8:58pm, you may not be able to get Bob’s party registration thrown out… but you are here to cast aspersions on his blog and slander and discredit him.
DeleteWho else but militant ideologues would reason that quoting conservatives and their aligned outlet should be off limits for a blog that discusses the media and politics? Who else but anonymices would pull that from their butt rather than admitting that they want the blog gone because Bob doesn’t play by their rules.
8:58 - Hey, I’m an actual liberal on this planet, and I was taught in Sixth Grade Civics class that freedom of speech was part of the canon of liberal values. But I guess I missed the part that said you shouldn’t criticize Dear Leader during election seasons.
DeleteHas anyone noticed that Cecelia and Trump both have the same stream-of-consciousness ranting style?
DeletePP, I guess you didn't learn anything about being a team member in your special school.
DeleteI want the blog gone because Somerby is a liar liar pants on fire supported by Russia (and has been since 2015) and because an old fart like him deserves a better hobby in his golden years.
Delete“Who else but militant ideologues would reason that quoting conservatives and their aligned outlet should be off limits for a blog that discusses media and politics.”
DeleteI can’t improve on that.
Anonymouse 9:06pm, Bob accurately predicted that Clinton was a weak candidate. He accurately predicted that Biden was too old. He accurately predicted that James Comey was a snake while anonymices decried that by saying that Trump so awful even a Republician like Comey couldn’t abide him.
DeleteGoidness knows anonymices are too stupid to hear anything they don’t wish to hear, but you’d think their handlers would have some sense.
Anonymouse 9:10pm, just call us Shecky.
DeletePointing out how Somerby has echoed right wing beliefs isn’t helping you make Somerby’s case as a supposed liberal.
DeleteBut Somerby doesn’t actually discuss the media and politics.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:24pm, only an anonymouse would refer to on-the-money predictions as being “right wing beliefs” simply because they weren’t to script.
Delete1. Hillary didn’t lose because Comey & Russia interfered in the election.
Delete2. Clinton overwhelmingly won the popular vote, which means she was not a bad candidate.
3. Trump was a bad candidate because he lost the popular vote bigly, even with Russia’s help and all that money.
4. No anonymous here said that stuff about Comey. Somerby called Comey a god though.
5. Cecelia is making shit up.
9:16,
DeleteThat's what the deep state wants you to believe.
Don't fall for it.
Show some pride in yourself, for a change.
Anonymouse 10:59pm, compare Hillary’s results with Obama or Biden. Compare it to Trump with nary a political background and accusations of Russian collusion (bought and paid for by Clinton) never panned out.
DeleteSomerby was mocking you and the media by calling Comey a god. He dissed that oily operator daily and since it’s a requirement for anonymices to contradict Bob, this meant that after Comey turned on Clinton, anonymices were left holding bags of ardent defenses on behalf of Comey,
The redux via Biden was enjoyable too.
Somerby predicted Biden's age would be a concern, despite it not really being a concern to himself, the media, or voters.
DeleteRepublicans are still cheating using Russian funding:
ReplyDelete“Two RussiaToday employees were indicted this week by the Justice Department which claimed they deployed nearly $10 million to circulate RT-curated content which garnered millions of views through an online content creation company.
Commentators claimed the company the DOJ points to, but which it doesn't name, is a pro-Republican group where hosts openly promote Donald Trump.”
For the price of 1.25 new tanks Putin can disrupt an election to his favor, saving him from any additional US assistance to Ukraine. Pretty good ROI. I listened to a rant by one of the folks named by the DOJ, Tim Pool. He said the Ukrainians blew up the Nord Stream pipeline starting the war with Russia; making Ukraine our greatest enemy. Couple problems. Russia escalated the war in February, 2022. Nord Stream blew in September 2022. Russia started the war with Ukraine in 2014. The 1'st Trump impeachment was about Trump delaying arms shipments for Ukraine's defense against Russia until they dug up dirt on the Biden's. But how do you explain this to someone (DiC) who has had their brain rotted by assholes like this?
DeleteTim Pool and Dave Rubin are just two of the right wing grifters outed in the indictment, but there are undoubtedly many more grifters out there receiving money, people like Jimmy Dore and Tulsi Gabbard.
DeleteDiC has spent a fair amount of time trying to convince people here that people like Tim Pool and Joe Rogan aren’t right wing shills. Has DiC’s brain rotted? Or is he fulfilling his duty to his paymaster? Same with Somerby.
Anyone thinking that DIC is an honest broker here or has anything more than a passing interest in facts is wasting their time trying to convince him of anything. He routinely comes here spewing disinformation that can be debunked with the touch of a finger, an effort which he eschews because his innate biases are reinforced by the right wing media outlets he feeds off. His comments here about Harris are typical examples.
DeleteLike all Right-wingers, the only thing he cares about is the bigotry.
DeleteHow can you say that? DiC admires two blahs, Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas.
DeleteSomerby notes Bret Stephens is “aggressively anti-Trump”, to the extent that is accurate, it pales in comparison to how aggressively anti-Dem Stephens is.
ReplyDeleteLeaving out this context is highly manipulative on Somerby’s part.
"U.S. economic growth would likely get the biggest boost in the coming two years from the Democrats, headed by Kamala Harris, winning the White House and Congress in this November's elections, according to Goldman Sachs.
ReplyDeleteUnder a Republican sweep, or even with a divided government led by Donald Trump, economic output would take a hit next year, mostly from increased tariffs on imports and tighter immigration policies, Goldman said in a note late on Tuesday." [Reuters]
"Today, Kamala Harris announced that she would increase the capital gains tax to 28 percent. That’s higher than the current rate of 23.8 percent, but far lower rate than the 39.6 percent rate Biden had proposed.
ReplyDeleteThe move apparently came after pressure from her campaign’s biggest donors to back off some of its most aggressive tax proposals."
This supports my view that those same donors pushed Biden out of the race because of his tax policies. Now they are threatening Harris and she seems to have backed off Biden's proposed increase. I hope she will rethink that after she is elected.
Donors should never have been allowed to push a candidate off a ticket like that. It still makes me sick when I think about what they did (colluding with the mainstream legacy press). That isn't democracy to me.
In his first or nearly first NY Times column, Stephens cast doubt on the need for drastic measures to mitigate climate change. However, he changed his mind on this more recently because of viewing the situation in Greenland first hand. He views Democratic economic measures too skeptically, but, as with climate change, he can be persuaded with evidence.
ReplyDelete