The Amazing Ability Of People To Simply Ignore Data That Proves What They Believe Is Wrong

from the the-hall-of-shame dept

Nate Silver, who, before he became famous as a political data analyzer on his FiveThirtyEight website (now hosted by the NY Times), was famous to a much smaller group of folks for his similar data analysis of baseball data at Baseball Prospectus. Every so often, he jumps back to baseball analysis, such as with his recent effort to question some of the common wisdom concerning the Baseball Hall of Fame. There's a common complaint among fans and some in the press that the Hall of Fame has become "watered down" in some way, and that they're letting in players who really shouldn't qualify. The comment that is repeated way too frequently is "It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Very Good." However, Silver breaks down the actual data, and notes that percentage-wise significantly fewer players are getting into the Hall of Fame today than in the past. He shows the following chart to help prove the point: As he notes, the point is not to say that one period is correct, and the other is not, but simply to challenge the suggestion that admission to the Hall of Fame has become much easier today. And, yes, he also discusses some of the obvious counterpoints -- such as the fact that, thanks to expansion, there are now more players -- and why there are other equalizing forces (the internationalization of the game, for example).

It's an interesting article if you're interested in that kind of thing. But, what's most entertaining is that a large number of the comments on the story seem to simply refuse to accept what the data says. They don't refute the data. They don't suggest explanations that would explain the data. They flat-out ignore it and insist that the Hall of Fame has been watered down these days. I noticed this thanks to King Kaufman who aggregated some of the sillier comments. Here are a few:

• "Too stringent"? Au contraire. Over the last couple of decades they have admitted so many bums that it defies description. If anything, the standards should be tightened. There are perhaps six active players who should EVER be considered.
• We've dumbed down America and now you want to water down what makes a true athlete great. They should measure up or not be considered!!!! That's the problem with America continually relaxing standards and codes.!!!!
• The statistical look at the question is entirely misdirected. There have been a handful of standout players in the game, something less than 50 in total.
• i thought the hall was for extraordinary accomplishments not just very good ...the hall is so diluted these days.

There are probably some decent explanations for these kinds of mass delusions. I would guess that people who either never actually saw some of the Hall of Fame players from an earlier generation, or saw them so long ago and are overcome with nostalgia, are dealing with a bit of confirmation bias -- where they only remember (or know about) the highlights, and ignore the rest. With more recent players, they've probably seen them a lot more, or remember things a lot more clearly, and thus the "great" feats are diluted in their heads by the fact that they weren't preternaturally good (but, no one is).

That said, we often see this sort of thing around here. I've presented numerous studies concerning certain areas of interest, and almost immediately we get comments that don't try to rebut the data, or point to errors in the studies (and there may very well be errors or confounding factors), but to simply insist that what they've always believed simply must be true. It seems like a form of cognitive dissonance on display in ways that are both troubling and amusing. It's the basis of what I call "faith-based" decision making, where actual data is simply ignored for what "must be" true.

Filed Under: baseball, data, hall of fame, studies