Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Well, the title of the video is actually wrong.

Smarter people did better than Dumber people. The people with a score of 8,9 on numeracy did the best [1] but not as good as they should've. This is basically best shown on page 12 [2] on the actual paper, people with high numeracy have a better chance of correct answer than low numeracy.

I suspect the effect is even across low & high numeracy but because high numeracy people were more likely to get the correct answer to begin with. Akin to say you playing a toddler in Counter-Strike. You're more likely to win a round than them. So if for a round I disconnect one of your controllers then the disconnection is more likely to cause you a loss than the toddler because the toddler was going to lose anyways, the effect of disconnection for them is dwarfed by their innate ability.

[1]: https://youtu.be/zB_OApdxcno?t=413

[2]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992



The title says that smarter people do worse, which is correct in the sense that their relative performance is 20% worse than less numerically inclined people. They cover this in the latter half of the video. However, in order to believe this was the title’s intent, you would have to assume the title should have read, “Smarter people score worse on political numerical questions than on apolitical numerical questions.” Realistically it’s so ambiguous that any interpretation is plausible.


> Realistically it’s so ambiguous that any interpretation is plausible.

The dude isn't some rushed working single mother. He had amble time to choose what he wanted to convey and instead chose that title.

When your study creates 2 populations (those with good numeracy and those without) and you make a claim that one of those populations "do worse" than it's always implicitly with respect to the other population.


All I can say is your frustration is valid, and welcome to modern YouTube.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: