I am afraid I find this confusing. Try again and maybe I have a thought. Then again, maybe not.
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The Call To Serve
- Thread starter scoober78
- Start date
I am awaiting your critique of their methodology in this piece. Just because an organization is partisan doesn't mean everything they produce is biased or slip shod. While it is true facts can sometimes be manipulated, I don't see it in this case. Everyone should be a critical consumer of information but I don't see what the agenda would be in this instance anyway. Is it a conservative position to support an all volunteer military or is it a conservative position to support a draft or national service? Is it the position of the Heritage Foundation that poor people serve in the military and elites get a pass? I can't figure out what the Conservative bias would be in this case. Even so take any partisan think tank, or research organization and it will be the case that on some issues the facts will support their side of an issue. Just because a position happens to agree with their political/social philosophy doesn't automatically mean it is bad research or biased in any way. If that were the case then those types of organization would never be able to comment on the issues that dove tail with their principles, but would be restricted to critical commentary and research on those issue they disagree with. That is where you will find your bias. As I said, you are free to criticize the article. Please provide specifics and your research or source to back it up.
Sir:
Surely you jest. Sean Hannity is an avowed conservative political commentator. Walter Cronkite was an evening news show reporter who, incidentally, turned out to be a closet liberal after he retired. Commentators make comments (of their opinions). Reporters are supposed to report the news. There is a difference here, in case you missed it. Just sayin' & MHO only.
Jest? Not quite...definitely a bit of creative license though. Yes, I was exaggerating to create a clever turn-of-phrase...
I know who Walter Cronkite and Sean Hannity are...and I have spent quite a bit of time around real research. While they do some of the former at the Heritage Foundation, I would argue that the majority of their time and effort is spent in what amounts to statistics mining to support their "agenda"...sounds alot like commentary vice news reporting to me.
You'll have to excuse me for being skeptical of the unbiased research of an organization with this as it's mission statement.
"a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."
Further, when that mission produces such headline gems as:
Morning Bell: The Specter of Taxmageddon Rises
Contradictory Evidence Swallows Administration Libya Cover-Up
Is Marriage the Key to Prosperity?
Left Exalts Sex over Religion
Morning Bell: Obama Administration Will Pay Companies to Violate the Law
President Obama’s Apology Tour
You may be right. I'd acknowledge that some of what Heritage produces is methodologically correct. Some questions I have immediately about this piece of work:
1. The data is 6 or so years old. Is current data supporting this trend? How about past? Since they cherry picked two years and provided no additional trend data, the historic and present significance of their data isn't able to be assessed.
2. They make their claims about recruit affluence based on census data. In short, they took the recruits enlistment zip codes and assumed the median income of that zip code was the recruit's family income. This is terrible and lazy methodology. You mean to tell me no poor kids live in say 21401? Annapolis, MD? How about 92105? City Heights near San Diego? Does everyone there make the median household income of $249,000? I doubt it. This method does nothing to correct for the fact that the military may tend to draw in larger numbers, people from households below the median income line of a particular zip code they may be living in. You can't make pronunciations like "U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officers who do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds" when your research method isn't refined enough to identify what background the enlistees came from.
3. The study claims that "American soldiers are more educated than their peers" without defining who that peer group is. Apparently, it's every male between 18-24 in the nation because the study then claims it is in comparison to 24% of men 18-24 without a HSD. First, at least a third of your enlistees aren't men. They are women. Where are those statistics? Second, you assume (but again, can't prove, because of your slipshod methodology) that all of these people are socio-economic peers...not valid. Finally, the study neglects to mention that the reason they are so disproportionately educated is that they are required to have a HSD or equivalent prior to enlisting. It's a classic ad hoc ergo propter hoc argument. They look great on paper, but one thing isn't causal to the other.
phrogpilot73
Well-Known Member
Clay St and West Washington St are both in the 21401 zip codes. That's where public housing is in Annapolis.
Scoob,
What I see a lot these days is that if you disagree with someone, they are stupid or lying. To the extent that truly useful research must come to a conclusion, if someone disagrees with the conclusion it is often automatically suspect. Conversely few people are as critical of their own views when it appears to be validated by research. Heritage is as up front as the Hudson Institute and the Progressive Policy Institute. I have no problem with that. The transparency allows for a starting point in critical review. But lets not throw all these types of organizations under the bus ( that is if you are equally critical of the left of center groups). They serve a purpose. They generally approach a question just like a scientist, with a hypothesis The Heritage hypotheses is going to be conservative in nature, the position by Hudson liberal and Cato libertarian. They go out and collect data, do the rresearch generally good research because they know they will be nit picked by their oopposites. If it supports their claim they publish. And if it doesn't, no they won't publish and that is because it is a private partisan group. Just because they don't research or publish reports critical of their position doesn't make the ones they do inherently biased. Someone has to be right. And because there are organizations of their polar opposite, they will be sure to collect data, research and publish what HHeritageddecidedto table. There is nothing wrong with that and it doesn't mean either oorganizationis routinely or ppurposelypproducingflawed research to support their ppositions. I have to wonder if the same research had been done by and same conclusions reported in the New York Times if you would have given it a second thought. If the Heritage paper had been reported on in the Washington Post would it have given it a veneer of authority you don't give it now? Finding truly unbiased research is very difficult. You are certainly more likely to find it in academia, but there is plenty of bias there to go around. The problem is university research and some others (like newspapers and authors of books) are simply not ttransparentabut their biases. I for one am just as suspect of university research as I am of Cato or PPI.
Your points of concern are noted and reasonable.
1- The paper was published in 2008 soon after the data was available. Never said it held true today. BTW, the book AWOL was published in 2008. The data was not cherry picked. This paper builds on previous work and data going back to 2003. The data has to start some where. It started then, (OIF) because of public questions about who would bear the burden of "GW Bush's war."
2- There is no data set large enough to base the research on but census data. Recruits are not polled for their socio economic situation. While zip codes are referenced conclusions are based on census tract, which is much smaller.
3-Yes 18-24 would be the peer group since 87% of recruits are between those ages. High school grad rate is currently about 69%. Those over age 25 with a HSD is about 87%. So if 90% of recruits have a HSD or higher then they are better educated. Oh, and since everywhere else they mention "recruits" I think we can give them a pass on the gender thing. Slip of the tongue. Not slop shod.
For those of you who have had to wade into this, I apologies. I could have just said read the whole thing including footnotes and references. It is all there.
What I see a lot these days is that if you disagree with someone, they are stupid or lying. To the extent that truly useful research must come to a conclusion, if someone disagrees with the conclusion it is often automatically suspect. Conversely few people are as critical of their own views when it appears to be validated by research. Heritage is as up front as the Hudson Institute and the Progressive Policy Institute. I have no problem with that. The transparency allows for a starting point in critical review. But lets not throw all these types of organizations under the bus ( that is if you are equally critical of the left of center groups). They serve a purpose. They generally approach a question just like a scientist, with a hypothesis The Heritage hypotheses is going to be conservative in nature, the position by Hudson liberal and Cato libertarian. They go out and collect data, do the rresearch generally good research because they know they will be nit picked by their oopposites. If it supports their claim they publish. And if it doesn't, no they won't publish and that is because it is a private partisan group. Just because they don't research or publish reports critical of their position doesn't make the ones they do inherently biased. Someone has to be right. And because there are organizations of their polar opposite, they will be sure to collect data, research and publish what HHeritageddecidedto table. There is nothing wrong with that and it doesn't mean either oorganizationis routinely or ppurposelypproducingflawed research to support their ppositions. I have to wonder if the same research had been done by and same conclusions reported in the New York Times if you would have given it a second thought. If the Heritage paper had been reported on in the Washington Post would it have given it a veneer of authority you don't give it now? Finding truly unbiased research is very difficult. You are certainly more likely to find it in academia, but there is plenty of bias there to go around. The problem is university research and some others (like newspapers and authors of books) are simply not ttransparentabut their biases. I for one am just as suspect of university research as I am of Cato or PPI.
Your points of concern are noted and reasonable.
1- The paper was published in 2008 soon after the data was available. Never said it held true today. BTW, the book AWOL was published in 2008. The data was not cherry picked. This paper builds on previous work and data going back to 2003. The data has to start some where. It started then, (OIF) because of public questions about who would bear the burden of "GW Bush's war."
2- There is no data set large enough to base the research on but census data. Recruits are not polled for their socio economic situation. While zip codes are referenced conclusions are based on census tract, which is much smaller.
3-Yes 18-24 would be the peer group since 87% of recruits are between those ages. High school grad rate is currently about 69%. Those over age 25 with a HSD is about 87%. So if 90% of recruits have a HSD or higher then they are better educated. Oh, and since everywhere else they mention "recruits" I think we can give them a pass on the gender thing. Slip of the tongue. Not slop shod.
For those of you who have had to wade into this, I apologies. I could have just said read the whole thing including footnotes and references. It is all there.
I also argue that the piece might be biased without intending to be. The timeframe in which it was conducted was a time when retention was high and only highly qualified applicants were accepted into any military programs. Of course a demographic slice would include mostly educated people from anything other than poverty level social status.
It would be interesting to see what that same demographic looked like from 1999-2000...
I don't think so. The latest data they have is for 2006-2007. That was the height of OIF and very bad war press. It was also before the 2008 finanacial crash and the econmy was doing fairly well. I know at one point the Army had to raise their max age to make goal and was giving more waivers for those that had run ins with the law. One of the motivations for this reserach was to see who was enlisting during just such a stressful period. I don't recall retention numbers but remember the concern for all the West Point guys bailing after their minimum commitment was up
LET73
Well-Known Member
Keeping experienced people in the military benefits the military for obvious reasons, but I think having a wider pool of people come in and serve for 4-6 years benefits us as well. Too many people don't consider military service as a career option because they don't know anyone who served, and they're operating under false assumptions of what being in the military entails. That means that we're potentially missing out on good people, and that the people who will go on to make decisions about the military (elected officials or career government civilians) are a lot less likely to have an understanding of the military. I'd like to see a far higher percentage of Americans serving.
As far as demographics, I've only had a few sailors who grew up extremely poor, but I don't know a whole lot of wealthy people who joined the military, either. That's just personal experience, possibly illustrative, possibly not. I'll add that while I didn't grow up wealthy, we weren't poor, either, and I don't know anyone else I grew up with who joined the military.
As far as demographics, I've only had a few sailors who grew up extremely poor, but I don't know a whole lot of wealthy people who joined the military, either. That's just personal experience, possibly illustrative, possibly not. I'll add that while I didn't grow up wealthy, we weren't poor, either, and I don't know anyone else I grew up with who joined the military.
Clearly not what I am doing, so I'm not sure why you keep pounding on me...in fact, what I'm feeling like here is that because I disagree with you, you think I'm stupid and or lying....Maybe this is getting lost in the internets...not sure.
No....and I agree that unbiased research is nearly impossible to find because of what you pointed out...it starts with a hypothesis. However, methodology and the conclusions drawn with it are where I take contention with this report and many "research" reports done left and right.
Never said that you did. Fair enough on publishing...but again, without historic context, the conclusions the report can draw are limited. Agree on political motivation for starting.
Well, ok... But census data for the reasons I pointed out, doesn't provide the information to make the claims they do. If you want to make those claims you either have to create the data by doing more empirical research or, draw a different conclusion. You simply CANNOT say that someone from a zipcode with a high median income is wealthy. CANNOT.
I feel like you are missing my point. It's an post hoc ergo propter hoc because most of the military requires a HSD for entry...of course then, the level of education for a military sample is higher than the population at large...you are excluding everyone who doesn't graduate. It's by design and is correlation, not causal.
I didn't read it that he was personally calling you those things; I read it that part of his comment as a general statement on political discourse these days. (You- the general "you..." or "people.")
Don't forget about the square bounded by Arcade, Cooper, and Buchanan Streets.
Scoober,
Jim got it right. Not personal by any means. Oh, and I don't speak Latin (from Iowa, not Latin America) so I still don't get your point regarding education. Just to get it down to my level, are you arguing that the military today is not as well educated as their peers, or do you accept the the authors conclusion and disagree purely on methodology? It may be as simple as them not knowing Latin either.
Jim got it right. Not personal by any means. Oh, and I don't speak Latin (from Iowa, not Latin America) so I still don't get your point regarding education. Just to get it down to my level, are you arguing that the military today is not as well educated as their peers, or do you accept the the authors conclusion and disagree purely on methodology? It may be as simple as them not knowing Latin either.