On Thu, 16 Nov 2000, Robert J. MacG. Dawson wrote:
>
>
> Michael Granaas wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 16 Nov 2000, Thom Baguley wrote:
> > >
> > > I was also struck by the poll result in Florida newspaper reporting that most
> > > Floridians thought the election was fair. Most was less than 2/3 in that case.
> > > I would be horrified if 1/3 of the electorate in an English election thought
> > > the election might be unfair. (I'd hope for 99% plus percent thinking it fair).
> > >
> > > Thom
> >
> > As someone living in the U.S. I'm surprised that over 50% thought the
> > election was fair. From the media we are getting a picture that
> > indicates that all Gore supporters thought that the election was unfair
> > and the Bush supporters thought that it was fair.
>
> "It all depends what you mean by" fair - and that may be more a problem
> for the psychologists, philosophers, and anthropologists than the
> statisticians.
I think that what follows is my point exactly. Hence, my surprise that
more than 50% of Floridians thought the election was fair. In retrospect,
however, with Bush winning 48(49?)% of the popular vote it would take only
a few third party supporters to push the percentage above 50%. I would be
absolutely amazed if the number were anything close to 60%. Getting 99%
to agree that an election was fair, in the USA anyway, seems to me like an
unachievable goal.
Michael
>
> For instance, there is a tendancy to view the US VietNam draft lottery
> as "unfair" in retrospect because birth dates at certain times of year
> were favored by a flawed randomization process. However, it seems to be
> agreed that this was done without malicious intent.
>
> How would you rate the "fairness" of the following schemes?
>
> -order of callup determined by day number: eg, Jan 1st then Jan. 2nd
> then... then Dec. 31st
>
> -same but starting at a randomly selected day (Apr. 23 followed by ...
> followed by April 22nd
>
> -same as first, but with one toss of a coin deciding once and for all
> whether to go forward or backward through the year?
>
> -day numbers ordered by some "more uniform" scheme (say, every 17th day
> - note 17 and 366 are coprime - after a randomly selected starting
> point)
>
> -day numbers randomly selected by a well-tested pseudorandom number
> generator (note that these are in fact deterministic?)
>
> -individual day numbers selected completely at random, as attempted in
> real life?
>
> - a number from 1 to 365 assigned at random to each male American
> without reference to birth date?
>
> Would your answer to any of the above (except the last) change if the
> scheme had been decided in (say) 1945, before the birth of the young men
> involved, so that their birth dates were decided after the ranking not
> before? Is it "fairer" because the draft lottery position is randomized
> individually for each man, or less fair because he is "doomed from
> birth" instead of spending many years knowing he was going to be called
> up first?
>
> What if it had been decided and kept secret?
>
> Would your answer change if your belief in the justness of compulsory
> military service in the VietNam war were different from whatever it is?
>
> -Robert Dawson
>
*******************************************************************
Michael M. Granaas
Associate Professor [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology
University of South Dakota Phone: (605) 677-5295
Vermillion, SD 57069 FAX: (605) 677-6604
*******************************************************************
All views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect those of the University of South Dakota, or the South
Dakota Board of Regents.
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