Does Your Name Matter Argumentative Essay States what the general argument of the reading is. The student discusses other potential explanations for the ar

Does Your Name Matter Argumentative Essay States what the general argument of the reading is.
The student discusses other potential explanations for the argument besides what the author discusses.
In cases where there is empirical evidence supporting the argument, the student describes the evidence used. This is not essential for the Kida chapters which are mostly supported by examples.

the reading link: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-much-does-your…

and the ppt can help to understand what the argument and understand what we discuss 🙂 What’s in a name?
JANUARY 28 (FEBRUARY 1 OR 4 BECAUSE OF SNOW DELAYS)
Review of important concepts from last
class
Falsifiability: A hypothesis can only be considered scientific it it
can be empirically proven or disproven.
Deduction: From the general to the specific (Sherlock Holmes)
Induction: From the specific to the general.
Problem of induction: I cannot conclude something about what I
have not seen from what I have seen (i.e. just because every
raven I have seen is black, it doesn’t mean I can conclude every
raven in the world is black).
Thinking like a scientist
So far we have talked about what is science.
But there are all sorts of topics and issues that social
sciences can help us understand.
Today we’ll go over how would you answer questions about
social sciences from a scientific perspective.
Effect of name of grades
Boys with girl names
Why is class misbehavior important?
Disrupts ability to teach
Interferes with student outcomes
…
In this case, the author is using names as an identification
strategy for potentially disrupting students.
In other words, he is using name as a measure for
misbehavior.
Assumptions the author makes
Names lead to misbehavior.
He finds no effect in the elementary school years, but in 6th
grade he sees an effect on boys with girl names.
He is assuming names are causing misbehavior.
Is that a reasonable assumption? Why?
Why would misbehavior of these students begin in the 6th
grade?
Names more common on girls:
measurement
Results
Things to notice
Not an experiment. Why is it a scientific approach?
Is it falsifiable?
Remember out cheat sheet
no
Is anything presented supported
the evidence?
yes
Unsupported
assertion
Appeal to
authority
no
Casual observation
no
Were any
observations
made about
the facts?
yes
Were the
observations
reliable?
yes
Scientific evidence
How else would you try to answer this
question?
It’s time we think like scientists.
How would you study the effect on names on school
behavior?
How would you improve of these study?
What is he missing?
What about females
with masculine names?
GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN THE LABOR FORCE
Gender discrimination in the labor force
Strategy: Compare 2 groups
MASCULINE NAMES ON FEMALES
LEAST MASCULINE NAMES
What do they find?
Nominal masculinity (how masculine a name is) is correlated with admission to the Bar in South
Carolina for female attorneys.
Is this scientific? Is it falsifiable? Why?
no
Is anything presented supported
the evidence?
yes
Unsupported
assertion
Appeal to
authority
no
Casual observation
no
Were any
observations
made about
the facts?
yes
Were the
observations
reliable?
yes
Scientific evidence
How would you do it?
Put on your social scientist hat. How would you study the
effect of masculine names on females?
This is an observation study. The authors are looking for
correlations between nominal masculinity and admission to
the bar. This means they need to control for all alternative
explanations.
Are they missing any potential explanations? Which ones?
What evidence would you theoretically need to falsify this?
Ethnicity of names
ALSO LABOR MARKET EFFECT OF NAMES
Effect of race on discrimination
How do you measure if people are
discriminated on the basis of their race?
Survey?
Self report?
These have issues because racism is socially undesirable and
in many cases, implicit.
So they use name as an indicator of race.
Do you think this is a good measure? Why?
Results
What are the names used?
So…
People with traditionally African American names take
longer to find a job with identical resumes as someone with
traditionally White names.
That is the case even with identical resumes.
Is it scientific? Falsifiable?
no
Is anything presented supported
the evidence?
yes
Unsupported
assertion
Appeal to
authority
no
Casual observation
no
Were any
observations
made about
the facts?
yes
Were the
observations
reliable?
yes
Scientific evidence
Think like a scientist
Since they randomized assignment we don’t need to control
for other variables: the resumes were identical.
But do you think this is the best way to measure racism in
the labor market?
How would you go about answering the same question in a
different study?
What type of evidence would falsify this result?
Online ads
Google ads. Is Google racist?
Names
Black name ad results vs criminal history
White name ad results vs criminal history
What does the study conclude?
Google ads assume people with traditionally black names
are more likely to have a criminal background, even when
they don’t.
But Google ads is an inanimate object, doesn’t have free
will.
What could be going on instead?
Scientific? Falsifiable?
no
Is anything presented supported
the evidence?
yes
Unsupported
assertion
Appeal to
authority
no
Casual observation
no
Were any
observations
made about
the facts?
yes
Were the
observations
reliable?
yes
Scientific evidence
Think like a scientist
Since they randomized assignment we don’t need to control
for other variables: the resumes were identical.
But do you think this is the best way to measure if the
algorithm of Google Ads leads to racial discrimination?
How would you go about answering the same question in a
different study?
What type of evidence would falsify this result?
Ideology effect on name
choice
General findings
Ideology
More specific findings:
More findings
So the authors conclude…
Conservatives and liberals like different names.
Conservatives prefer names that sound more masculine for
both boys and girls, regardless of income.
Liberals tend to prefer more feminine sounding, softer
names
What assumptions are the authors
making?
What assumptions are necessary for the authors
conclusions to hold?
Do you think those are valid assumptions? Why?
Is it scientific?
no
Is anything presented supported
the evidence?
yes
Unsupported
assertion
Appeal to
authority
no
Casual observation
no
Were any
observations
made about
the facts?
yes
Were the
observations
reliable?
yes
Scientific evidence
Think like a scientist
This is not an experiment, but an observational study.
How would you go about answering the same question in
an experiment?
What type of evidence would falsify this result?
Names
Science, skepticism, and creativity
Part of thinking like a scientist is sometimes to be creative about
how to measure issues like racial and gender discrimination in a
way in which the variable is measurable and reliable.
That’s why some of the authors use names. In some cases they
are using names as an indicator for something else: race,
gender, etc.
But, in other cases, they might give future researchers ideas for
future indicator variables: names and ideology, for example.
Science, skepticism, and creativity
Some studies are experiments, others are not.
Not all science is experimental!
But all scientific statements should be falsifiable!
Can you think of other ways in which you would use names
in the social sciences?
Skepticism about names: Are names really that important?
Next class
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Chance and coincidence
DBEYT Chapter 4
Reading is from the textbook, so it’s not available in D2L

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