POL SCI 109Z Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Taser, Availability Heuristic, Confounding
16 Dec 2018
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Document Summary
Arguably the most important public good is public safety. Media coverage of events has a well-known but not well understood bias. If the media covers a story, you should assume that it is rare, not common. 7. 2 blacks per million are killed (as opposed to 2. 9 white americans) Around 130 to 140 police deaths a year. 2nd most likely form of death is car accident. More likely to have hands put on them, tased, pushed into a wall, etc. But 22, 25 percent less likely to be shot. When critiquing a study, you can"t just point out imperfections. You have to explain how a problem could explain away the finding. Alternative explanations have to explain the finding. With selection bias, groups are not always comparable. Is your outcome variable influencing your treatment. Selection bias and reverse causation are problems of internal validity. People who eat red meat die more often from heart attacks.
