I watched this video when it came out and I disagree with the findings in it, because to me it seems less to indicate that people reject logic because of political affiliations, and more people are critical of studies that contradict prior knowledge.
People interpreting results on the skin cream have absolutely no frame of reference. There isn’t a brand name associated with the skin cream that might have some kind of recognition for people to have prior knowledge. The study that they are presented with is the first time they are seeing anything about this skin cream.
People weighing in on gun control, have a lot of prior knowledge on the topic. Now whether all this knowledge is based on facts or data is obviously questionable. But regardless they have prior experience with the topic. So naturally you are going to be critical of a study showing you results that directly contradict your prior knowledge. Also from the video it doesn’t seem clear that they are asking them to specifically treat it like math problem and make judgements based on the study alone. They are asked whether they think gun control is effective. And while obviously they have the infographic right in front of them, most people are not going to base their judgements solely on that data alone.
To put it another way, what if the study was based on something non-political, like say whether smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day improves or worsened lung capacity over the course of a decade? I think most people would be heavily critical of the study that shows smoking improved lung capacity even if the data they are presented reflects that. And I don’t think it would be because they are simply rejecting logic and numeracy based on affiliations. It’s because they have prior information and knowledge that directly contradicts the singular study that is presented to them.
And this is ignoring the fact that while the statistic they use to measure the effectiveness for the cream is very tangible and direct. Either the rash improves or it worsens. And you can make direct comparisons with the control groups. In the gun control study you are comparing different sets of cities, ones that have gun control laws and ones that don’t. You aren’t comparing the same set of cities before and after gun control. So already this is a poor study. Then to make matters worse the statistic they use to measure the effectiveness is “crime worsened” and “crime improved”. Not crime committed with firearms. Or even just violent crimes. Just crimes. And in cities where gun control laws have been implemented, crime is naturally going to go up because there is a new law for people to break. Anybody who isn’t following the gun control laws in that city are committing a crime whereas people in the cities without those laws are doing the exact same thing, but it’s just not counted towards “crime” because it hasn’t been outlawed.
I think it’s sort of a matter of perspective. You may feel like having an easier mode degrades the experience, but for others it makes the game enjoyable/playable to them.
Do you have the same perspective on people that like the sandbox style of the sims games and so would use cheat codes for infinite money? It certainly alters the experience in a way that is different from the intentions of the devs, and to you may degrade the experience of the game, but for other people it elevates the game, and makes it more interesting or fun for them.
A similar argument could be made about the modding scene. Although it’s community driven rather than done by the actual devs of the games, allowing people to mod the game to customize their experience with quality of life mods, or mods that make the game easier/harder allows people to tweak the game more to their tastes and what they’re looking for in a game.
You might say that if a game isn’t appealing to someone they should just play another game. But if the game is very close to the experience they are looking for, but there are a few hangups that are a deal breaker for them, why force them to look for the perfect unicorn game instead of acknowledging that allowing players to cater the game to their own tastes is better. Having an easy mode does nothing to harm you, or your experience of the game, you can still play at your desired difficulty. And it only opens the game up for other people to enjoy.
You can’t make a blind person see a painting. But you can put a braille placard in front of it with a description of the painting. Or have audio tours that describe the paintings. And to you, that may degrade the art, but for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to experience it at all, it allows them to at least share somewhat in the experience that everyone else in the exhibit is having.