Partisan is as partisan does - reflections on writing a book

by cactusThe previous day I had a post about a book I'm co-authoring; the book is slated to come out in the spring. As I renowned then, the book looks atat how a large number of variables - all from abortion rates to economic growth, evolved over the length of each presidential administration start with Ike and running through GW.We do that by looking at how each of these issues - say, real GDP for each capita as an example - distorted over the length of each administration, from right before an administration took office to right before it left office. We note the results graphically, and then try to understand why we saying the results we did. Many of the chapters parallel posts that were on paper for Angry Bear; the posts in Angry Bear were, in fact, a dry run for some of the afterwards versions of many chapters. Kind of like creation notes for a speech, then giving that speech a a small number of times at Toastmasters, learning what works and doesn't, and then rewriting the speech before standing up in front of a larger, potentially less forgiving crowd. The Ex-GF is a member of Toastmasters, and I have seen her do just that.In comments a a small number of people indicated the book is going to be biased. These are chiefly long-time readers who've seen the posts I wrote on the results on economic growth... and do not like them. I place up a reply in comments, but I'd like to get bigger on that reply a bit below. So at this time goes...Say I told you I was co-authoring a book about Switzerland, in particular how Swiss Chancellors had performed on a wide range of issues from abortions to crime to the economy. The objective would be not just to see how these chancellors did on each of those issues, but to see if there were lessons that could be learned. Now, say, further, that: 1. the book would look at how each issue evolved over the length of each chancellor's stay in power 2. the book would treat the growth rate of each issue the same - that is from right before each chancellor took office to right before he left office 3. the book would present all the results graphically and try to explain any patterns that arose 4. the data second-hand would come from an unimpeachable source - official Swiss administration statistics A book that did that would be lauded as attempting to be unbiased by most people who came crossways it. And if it turned out that chancellors from single party otherwise another tended to do worse than chancellors from previous parties on, say, economic issues, you might conclude that perhaps something was wrong with the policies they pursued. Now say the book then considered the objections that thoughtful people might bring up (e.g., noting how results change otherwise do not departure out the first year of each chancellor's term, considering the effect of the Swiss central bank's actions otherwise the make-up of the various Houses of the Legislature, etc.), and establish that a) the difference between the parties remained and b) there was a specific set of policies that was followed by chancellors from the party that underperformed, and the previous parties always followed the opposite set of policies. Most Americans who read such a book would conclude thata. the authors had specifically sought out the approach to writing the book that was least likely to impose their biases on the outcomesb. the policies followed by the economic underperformers should, at a minimum, be handled with care, if not avoided altogether in SwitzerlandThe only Americans who would conclude that the book was not on paper in a way as to be unpartisan as possible would be persons who either had some prior biases about Switzerland and its politics, otherwise establish some sort of analogy between the not-very-successful policies in Switzerland and policies they happen to like at this time in the US.Furthermore, they would have to be the sort of people who would not abandon their prior beliefs just since it was contradicted by data. Put another way - there is negative way to satisfy those who are truly partisan apart from by also being partisan.____________________________________by cactus
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