"If you correct a false claim, they might double down on their existing opinions," says D.J. Flynn, a postdoctoral fellow in quantitative social science, in an article from American Press Institute about people's tendencies to believe misinformation even after it's disproven by fact checkers. This was the Dartmouth Quote of the Day for April 7, 2017. Read the full article here.
David Cottrell is a postdoctoral fellow in the Program in Quantitative Science (QSS) and teaches the QSS course "By the Numbers: Race, Incarceration and Politics." Michael Herron is a visiting scholar at the Hertie School of Governance and professor of government at Dartmouth College. Sean Westwood is an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College and teaches the QSS course "Computational Text Analysis." As with their first analysis of voter fraud in the 2016 election, Cottrell, Herron, and Westwood find no evidence to support the assertions of large-scale voter fraud in New Hampshire that have been forthcoming from the Trump administration. Read the full Washington Post story on their collaborative research here. Coverage in The Concord Monitor is here. Coverage in The Chronicle of Higher Education is here.
QSS Steering Committee members John Carey and Brendan Nyhan, who are both professors in the Government Department, recently launched Bright Line Watch with political scientists at the University of Rochester and Yale University. Bright Line Watch is a new initiative to monitor democratic practices in the U.S. and call attention to threats to American democracy. Their first U.S. Democracy Survey, which surveyed more than 1,500 political scientists in the U.S., was covered by The Upshot at the New York Times and the Washington Post.
John M. Carey is the Wentworth Professor in the Social Sciences at Dartmouth College, where he was chair of the Department of Government from 2009-2015 and currently serves as a member of the steering committee of the Program in Quantitative Social Science. His research focuses on the design of democratic institutions. His books include Legislative Voting & Accountability (Cambridge 2009) and Presidents & Assemblies (Cambridge 1992, with Matthew Shugart). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Brendan Nyhan is Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and a member of the steering committee of the Program in Quantitative Social Science. Nyhan's research, which focuses on misperceptions about politics and health care, has been published in journals including the American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Medical Care, Pediatrics, Political Analysis, Political Behavior, Political Psychology, Social Networks, and Vaccine. He is a contributor to The Upshot at The New York Times.
Harry Enten is a senior political analyst and writer for FiveThirtyEight, a data journalism website. He studies polling and demographic trends to try and tell readers who and why candidates and parties win and lose elections. Previously, he was a writer with The Guardian in New York. Harry graduated from Dartmouth College, where he was better known for providing snowfall forecasts to students via blitz. He still loves snow.
This public talk, jointly sponsored by Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, Government Department, Program in Quantitative Social Science, The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences, was held on Friday, February 3, 2017.
For post-event coverage, see the article in The Dartmouth.
More than half a century after the height of the Civil Rights Movement, inequalities between black Americans and white Americans persist. Across a myriad of measures---including health, employment, income, wealth, education, and incarceration---black Americans are fundamentally different than whites. Leveraging contemporary data and modern quantitative techniques, we evaluate black-white racial gaps by the numbers and among other things consider how racial inequalities in the United States might alter the American political landscape.
Offered in Spring 2017 at the 10A hour with Professor David Cottrell. (course syllabus)