And Now For Something Completely Different

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT….Yesterday I posted a chart that plotted the frequency of prayer vs. partisan affiliation. It came from Razib Khan, who created it using data from the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey. Today, although he was happy that a few blogs linked to it, he lamented that “alas, the practice of looking to the GSS to test some intuition or CW hasn’t spread like wildfire.”

Well. That’s like catnip around here. I myself have never done this for a simple reason: I didn’t know I could. But it turns out that some fine folks at Berkeley have built a simple web interface for the GSS and several other big databases (here), and anyone who feels like poking around can do so. So I did.

The interface lists all the questions that the GSS asks and allows you to plot variables against each other to see what pops out. I did that for a while, generating nothing of any value, until I finally discovered something of vital importance: one of the questions on the 2006 GSS was, “How many people named Kevin are you acquainted with?” And there was even a followup question: “How many of those people named Kevin do you trust?”

I had to find out. Now, I could have plotted this against anything I wanted — age, sex, religious attendance, zodiac sign (really) — but this is a political blog, so I plotted it against party affiliation. The results are on the right, and they’re a little disturbing. Eyeballing the numbers, people appear to know an average of two Kevins each, but they only trust about half a Kevin each. So on average, people only trust about 25% of all the Kevins they know.

That’s a little deflating, isn’t it? But interesting! If you’re named Kevin, that is. You can check out results for your own name, but only if your name is Kevin, Karen, Shawn, Brenda, Keith, Rachel, Mark, Linda, Jose, or Maria. Your guess is as good as mine about why they chose those ten.

You can also do other stuff, of course, and that includes mining the data and abusing the results to produce results you find pleasing. And then blogging about it. You can probably expect some of that in the future. Until then, have fun.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate