Excitable Andy snarks from a post by Tyler Cowen on holding marginal opinions:
If no one agrees with you, you should be quite worried. If only a small number of people agree with you, you still should be quite worried. I don’t think it’s a numbers game, but I think whatever view you end up with, it doesn’t have to be a majority point of view, that reasons have weight, not just adding up whoever agrees with you. But you still ought to say at the end of the day, look all those other people are against me, maybe I think I’m right probability 57 to 43, but on any truly controversial question among intelligent people, you should never think it’s 95 to 5 in your favor.
Sully snarks:
Tell that to the president.
James Joyner notes how that does not work all that well for same-sex marriage. He also notes that it would not work all that well for atheists and agnostics. Of course, at one time the reverse was also true; Judaism and Christianity were marginal belief systems at one time or another. Indeed, I would suggest that most of the important opinions held in human history were marginal at one time or another.
This fallacy, however, gets repeated by people who think that elections are some sort of permanent referendum on ideology (usually people who think their candidate is sure to win). It also turns up in those who believe that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of all important issues in society:
We are not unaware that we are not final because we are infallible; we know that we are infallible only because we are final. — Justice Robert H. Jackson
That does not mean the Court is to be defied, but only to recognize that the Court — or the electorate — is made up of fallible humans. Over the course of history, the wisdom of crowds has had a decent track record.  In the short run, the marketplace of ideas is as susceptible to bubbles as any financial market.
Update: I should have noted that the “surge” was not all that popular at the time, either.
Comment by Steven L. on 6/24 @ 5:55 pm #
In fact, this is a specific, named logical fallacy taught universally as a type of thinking to *avoid* (c.f., “jumping on the bandwagon” or “appeal to popularity”).
Not that I am surprised much.
Comment by happyfeet on 6/24 @ 6:10 pm #
I saw Titanic.
Comment by Karl on 6/24 @ 6:25 pm #
Titanic won an Oscar.
Comment by Dan Collins on 6/24 @ 6:27 pm #
Peter Frampton was Entertainer of the Year in 1976, and Carter was President.
Comment by Karl on 6/24 @ 6:28 pm #
Steven L.
I am aware of the specific fallacy. Indeed, Joyner links to it.
In general, this post offers another lesson. Tyler Cowen is a talented economist. However, he seems to be a little short on formal logic. There is a tendency of people who are talented in a particular area to believe they have more expertise in other areas than they actually have. Regular pw visitors will know why I mention this.
Comment by Karl on 6/24 @ 6:29 pm #
Taste of Honey won the Grammy for Boogie Oogie Oogie.
Comment by B Moe on 6/24 @ 6:46 pm #
…on any truly controversial question among intelligent people…
There is a qualifier in there they seem to be underestimating, I think.
Comment by Roboc on 6/24 @ 6:48 pm #
Nadia Comaneci, a 14 year old mechanic’s daughter from Onesti, a factory town in the mountains of Romania, was the star of the Montreal Olympics with a score of seven 10’s.
Comment by dicentra on 6/24 @ 7:20 pm #
Regular pw visitors will know why I mention this.
Look, just because I majored in Spanish Lit doesn’t mean that I can’t evaluate James Hanson’s
lack ofstatistical methods, nor that I cannot recite pi to 396 places.Ok, maybe it does…
Comment by Aldo on 6/24 @ 7:31 pm #
There is a tendency of people who are talented in a particular area to believe they have more expertise in other areas than they actually have. Regular pw visitors will know why I mention this.
You wanted to avoid saying Beetlejuice.
Comment by Karl on 6/24 @ 7:34 pm #
indeed
lulz
Comment by maggie katzen on 6/24 @ 9:54 pm #
I haven’t. sucker.
Comment by Roboc on 6/25 @ 5:24 am #
Comment by maggie katzen on 6/24 @ 9:54 pm #
I saw Titanic.
I haven’t. sucker.
I know how it ends!
Comment by JD on 6/25 @ 5:31 am #
How would the Left square this with their obsession with polls?
Comment by B Moe on 6/25 @ 5:33 am #
I saw Titanic.
I haven’t. sucker.
I know how it ends!
Does the boat sink in the movie? You can never be sure with Hollywood.
Comment by ccs on 6/25 @ 5:52 am #
Titanic is about a boat?
Comment by Rob Crawford on 6/25 @ 6:15 am #
I thought it was about tits.
Comment by McGehee on 6/25 @ 6:27 am #
Everything is about tits. But you need a background, so, Titanic was about tits on a boat.
Comment by Roboc on 6/25 @ 6:28 am #
I thought it was about tits.
I thought all Hollywood movies were about tits, but then again, I didn’t see Brokeback Mountain!
Comment by JD on 6/25 @ 6:28 am #
Sugartits do not react very well with icebergs.
Comment by JD on 6/25 @ 6:29 am #
Roboc – The one guy had manboobs, and the other had a tattoo of tits on his back.
Comment by TmjUtah on 6/25 @ 6:31 am #
Brokeback Mountain was a cautionary tale.
“We’re plumb out of tits, pard. What do we do now?”
“Pard?”
Comment by McGehee on 6/25 @ 6:31 am #
Brokeback was about the tragedy of men not caring enough about tits.
Comment by Roboc on 6/25 @ 6:35 am #
I thought it was about ass branding!
Comment by Homer Simpson on 6/25 @ 7:28 am #
mmmmmmmm…
Tits.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 6/25 @ 7:52 am #
I thought it was about the danger of not having enough pudding.
Comment by Pablo on 6/25 @ 8:02 am #
Milli Vanilli won a Grammy. That wasn’t about tits, but it was about a pair of boobs.
Comment by Karl on 6/25 @ 8:08 am #
Coincidentally, Allahpundit disclosed his crush on Kate Winslet the other day, but he has not seen Titanic.
Or so he claims.
Comment by Roboc on 6/25 @ 8:16 am #
I thought it was about the danger of not having enough ass pudding.
Comment by CArin -BONC on 6/25 @ 8:34 am #
The band “Asia” was immensely popular and won a grammy as best new band of the year.
Comment by Samuel L. Jackson on 6/25 @ 8:45 am #
Titanic was about tits on a boat.
I believe you mean muthafuckin tits on a muthafuckin boat.
Comment by McGehee on 6/25 @ 8:59 am #
Hmm. I saw Titanic, and I honestly do not recall seeing either the tits or the boat fucking any mothers.
Was that in the Director’s Cut?
Comment by Rob Crawford on 6/25 @ 9:18 am #
Has he seen Peter Jackson’s “Beautiful Creatures”? It features Kate Winslet (in her first movie role) in what appears to be a bath tub full of milk. Oh, and the actress who plays Rose on “Two and a Half Men” is in it too. The tub, that is.
Not that anything happens. That we can see, anyway.
Yeah, I denounce myself.
Comment by The Lost Dog on 6/25 @ 10:11 am #
Those aren’t tits.
Them’s bait!
Pingback by Polling partriotism for Independence Day [Karl] on 7/4 @ 2:07 pm #
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