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Atheists distrusted as much as rapists

Jeff Corey said:
Right, it's another demonstration of the conjunction fallacy, like the Linda problem.
Tversky and Daniel Kahneman:
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
Which is more probable?
1.Linda is a bank teller.
2.Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

Most people pick 2.
Click to expand...

Hey! I knew Linda!

Yeah, she was a bank teller., active in the feminist movement.

Sure, we had a 'little thing'.
Why?

What did she tell you?
 
I have to say that that was the stupidest survey question I've ever seen, and the headline that accompanied it was almost stupidER, if that's possible.
 
Here's an interesting variation. Repeat the experiment, but make the choices "a teacher," "a Christian teacher," or "a rapist teacher." Now the promoters of this study would expect the "Christian teacher" to be the most trustworthy. But I suspect that in an otherwise truly neutral test, the loaded value of "Christian" would work against that group and they would score as less trustworthy than the "teacher" without other qualifiers. Then some wag willing to distort bad methodology could equate Christianity with rape.
 
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joesixpack said:
I have to say that that was the stupidest survey question I've ever seen, and the headline that accompanied it was almost stupidER, if that's possible.
Click to expand...

They may have been doing a variation of the Linda Problem. This is an example of the informal conjunction fallacy.

"Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Is it more likely that Linda is a bank teller, or a bank teller and feminist? Of course, it is more likely that she is the conjunct than the conjunction. However, the description of Linda given in the problem fits the stereotype of a feminist, whereas it doesn't fit the stereotypical bank teller. Because it is easy to imagine Linda as a feminist, people may misjudge that she is more likely to be both a bank teller and a feminist than a bank teller."

Refrerence: Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman,
(1985) "Judgments of and by Representativeness", in Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Tversky, editors, pp. 84-98.
 
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