Subdeacon Joe Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 One of my FB posts 2 years ago: "I just saw a cartoon online mocking people who try to research things online. People who are not part of some research group and don't have a string of alphabet soup after their names. Got me thinking about a discussion online back in the late '90s about gun control. Somebody cited a study by a group of high power academics from a fairly well known and respected institution of higher learning (no, I don't recall the names, and since it was almost 25 years ago, I don't have links). The study "proved" that teaching children about firearms and firearm safety didn't work because over 50 percent of the subjects touched a gun hidden in a room after they had had safety instructions. After much back and forth with the guy who cited it I was finally able to get from him the title of the paper and the primary authors. I was able to track it down and read it. The authors used children whose parents were in the daycare provided for the instructors in the psych department of the university. It used 34 kids, age 7 and younger. At the start of the week the kids were given a short instruction on firearm safety by one of the researchers - the researcher was not a gun owner and had no training in firearm safety. At the end of a week the kids were paired up and each pair was put in a room that had a realistic toy gun hidden in it. The training was to be considered ineffective if one of the kids even touched the gun instead of telling an adult about it. No toys or anything else in the room. Just a room like a staff lounge with armchairs and small couches. Naturally the kids quickly became bored and started poking around. Just as naturally, in most of the 17 pairs of kids one kid did touch the gun. Keep in mind that it was "over 50%" of the subjects, with each pair considered a subject. So that means 9 of the 34 touched the gun instead of telling an adult. Now, I don't know about your experience with kids, but in mine with kids that young you usually can't just tell them something once and expect them to remember it a week later, there has to be repetition for it to take. But this piece of junk science was treated as proof of the ineffectiveness of gun safety training for children. But we must never question experts." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 Just another example of "experts" doing a study designed to get the results that they want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 Some of our city's bureaucrats used to do the same thing. I recall one being sought for an issue. I was sitting on the interview selection process, when he asked "What results do you want?" I'm sure it was a one off and would NEVER happen elsewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdeacon Joe Posted December 28, 2023 Author Share Posted December 28, 2023 29 minutes ago, Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 said: I'm sure it was a one off and would NEVER happen elsewhere. If course not! Just a slip of the tongue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abilene Slim SASS 81783 Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 Statistics never lie, but liars use statistics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Neeley Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 Most experts are what I refer to as "Educated prostitutes". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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