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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2993 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 28, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I am not overly enamored of the way that article frames the research (and note that Josh Blackman is perhaps the least impressive of the regular contributors to the Volohk Conspiracy). The Volohk article says:

They asked respondents a series of questions to determine whether a babysitter who took the kids to the amusement park acted "reasonably." (I am grossly oversimplifying their methodology, and I urge you to read the entire paper.) The results? Only 8% of respondents thought that the amusement park hypothetical violated the parents' instruction. That's it!

But, the cited research actually asked two questions: 1) whether the babysitter's actions violated the rule; and 2) whether the babysitter's action was reasonable. While only 8 percent of the respondents said that the actions violated the rule, the response to #2 was more equivocal; as you note, the " estimated marginal mean ratings of the action’s reasonableness" was 4.68 out of a scale of 1-7, where higher numbers = more reasonable. That still does not bode great for Barrett, but it not nearly as bad as the 8 percent figure implies.

And, note that Barrett herself makes a distinction between #1 and #2. She says:

Was the babysitter’s trip consistent with the parent’s instruction? Maybe in a literal sense, because the instruction was open-ended. But was the trip consistent with a reasonable understanding of the parent’s instruction? Highly doubtful.

So, she seems to more or less agree (or at least does not disagree) with the 92% who do not think that the babysitter violated the rule.

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