gwern comments on 2012 Survey Results - Less Wrong

80 Post author: Yvain 07 December 2012 09:04PM

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Comment author: gwern 05 December 2012 08:43:37PM 6 points [-]
Comment author: Eugine_Nier 06 December 2012 04:40:46AM 2 points [-]

I wonder whether consequentialism endorsement and possibly some of the probability questions correlate with the two family background questions.

Comment author: gwern 06 December 2012 07:22:08PM 1 point [-]

Two? I see FamilyReligion but I dunno what your other one is. But to test family & MoralViews:

R> lw <- read.csv("2012.csv")
R> lwr <- subset(lw, as.character(FamilyReligion) != " ")
R> lwr <- subset(lwr, as.character(MoralViews) != " " & as.character(MoralViews) != "Other / no answer")
R> levels(lwr$FamilyReligion); levels(lwr$MoralViews)
[1] " " "Agnostic" "Atheist and not spiritual"
[4] "Atheist but spiritual" "Committed theist" "Deist/Pantheist/etc"
[7] "Lukewarm theist" "Mixed / Other"
[1] " " "Accept / lean toward consequentialism"
[3] "Accept / lean toward deontology" "Accept / lean toward virtue ethics"
[5] "Other / no answer"
R>
R> cor.test(as.integer(lwr$FamilyReligion), as.integer(lwr$MoralViews))
Pearson's product-moment correlation
data: as.integer(lwr$FamilyReligion) and as.integer(lwr$MoralViews)
t = -0.6631, df = 858, p-value = 0.5075
alternative hypothesis: true correlation is not equal to 0
95 percent confidence interval:
-0.08935 0.04429
sample estimates:
cor
-0.02263

I wondered if maybe the levels were screwing things up, even though they're in a logical order which should show any correlation if it exists, so I binned all the results into just binary 'atheist' and 'theist' (as it were), and looked at a chi-squared:

R> fr <- sapply(as.integer(lwr$FamilyReligion), function(x) if(x>4) {1} else {0})
R> mv <- sapply(as.integer(lwr$MoralViews), function(x) if(x>2) {1} else {0})
R> ct <- chisq.test(fr,mv); ct
Pearson's Chi-squared test with Yates' continuity correction
data: fr and mv
X-squared = 2e-04, df = 1, p-value = 0.9894
R> ct$expected; ct$observed
mv
fr 0 1
0 200.6 58.43
1 465.4 135.57
mv
fr 0 1
0 200 59
1 466 135

I am a little surprised. Maybe I messed up somehow.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 07 December 2012 02:48:55AM 1 point [-]

Two? I see FamilyReligion but I dunno what your other one is.

The one about which religion.

Comment author: gwern 07 December 2012 03:21:29AM *  0 points [-]

That's FamilyReligion then... I don't see why there'd be two such questions about family religion as you seem to think.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 07 December 2012 03:24:50AM 1 point [-]

I meant RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND.

Comment author: gwern 07 December 2012 03:42:18AM *  4 points [-]

That field has 41 levels, oy gevalt (I particularly like the religious background "Mother: Jewish; Fat"). Someone else can figure out that analysis!

Comment author: [deleted] 07 December 2012 02:03:34PM 3 points [-]

"Mother: Jewish; Fat"

;-D

(Yvain should use larger text fields the next time.)

Comment author: gwern 07 December 2012 04:43:43PM 9 points [-]

The lesson I have drawn from the survey is that free-response text fields are the devil and no one is to be trusted with them.