Hinderaker and Breitbart Make Patently False Parenting Claims — Off Of Dubious Data. Y A W N.

Some times (actually, most times) John Hinderaker shades the data he cherry picks. But sometimes, he (and Breitbart) just outright… lie. This is one of those latter times.

The set up — Hinderaker quotes a deeply conservative think tank, the one that commissioned (i.e., paid for) a Gallup survey, designed by the think tank, itself. The questions clearly lead respondents to favor “conservative values” — in describing the mental health of their children.

But that’s not enough — for these jokers. They then… ignore the central learning of the actual data as collected. They ignore the one factor that MOST closely predicted whether children would, in adolescence, show signs of being unhappy — what they called “mental health problems”.

That single most important factor?

I’ve shown you the actual data, at upper right — in the graphic. It is whether the parents have a good internal relationship. Not, not, not whether they are “conservative” (as opposed to liberal). Note that the data on liberal v. conservative — almost completely falls inside the “fuzziness” range of each category… barely getting out of the realm of being statistically… meaningless. But the quality of the parents’ relationship is the single most important predictor (as the bottom graphic shows — and the two charts don’t appear until page 14 of the 16 page report — but they are right above and below each other). Which is to say that if you choose to report it the way Breitbart and John did — you’ve affirmatively chosen to lie about an already deceptively skewed study.

Here’s how any real data scientist would restate the observations these chuckleheads made:

…”As it happens, being raised by parents who self-report a low quality relationship with their partner is a much larger risk factor for mental health problems in adolescence than being raised in a low-income household with parents who did not attend college — and much larger than the small differences seen, due to the overall ideology of the household,” observed all competent adults — able to read studies with confidence levels….

Cheers, to you two chuckleheads!

Out — with Sacklers’ grilling due tomorrow at the Supremes, in the morning….