October 2, 2008
Newsmakers
POLL FIBBING: Anthony Greenwald, the UW professor of psychology who developed an online test to detect implicit biases called Project Implicit, was mentioned in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal about voters lying in polls and surveys. The article stated that due to people unconsciously understating their biases in polls, actual election results may differ greatly from polled trends.
The article stated, “Greenwald … predicts that Sen. McCain will get more votes than the polls currently predict in states with small black populations and that Sen. Obama will get more votes than polls predict in states with large African American populations.”
MUDDLED STANCES: Barack Obama and John McCain aren’t talking much about same-sex marriage as they campaign for the White House, but NPR’s All Things Considered show took up the matter, and quoted David Domke, UW professor of communications, along the way. Both candidates’ positions on gay marriage are “muddled,” Domke says, “Both of them have this nuanced on-the-one-hand-yet-on-the-other-hand-need-to-explain-it kind of position, and I think that makes it difficult for either one of them to take a stand on that.”
SCHOOL STANDARDS: An article in The Wall Street Journal about the Dallas Independent School District’s new, more relaxed policies on testing included a comment from Dan Goldhaber, a research professor at the UW’s Center for the Reinvention of Public Education. The district’s new policy allows high school seniors to retake any test they fail within five days, with only the higher grade counting. School officials say they’re just trying to give students more chances to succeed. Goldhaber disagreed, saying, “It really does look like the lowering of standards.”
ARMS RACE: Olympic runners and trainers are always looking for ways to speed up running and shorten times. But an article in The New York Times during the late-summer Olympics quoted Peter Cavanagh, UW professor of orthopedics and sports medicine, saying, “The notion that there is one way to run is not, in my opinon, correct.” Cavanagh worked for years with Olympic runners who would ask if changing the position of their hands or arms might cut their time. One student even looked into how times might change if runners had their arms tied behind their backs, but it made “almost no diffference.”
GIRLS AND DRINKING: Newsweek took up the subject of young women and problem drinking in a recent article, and quotes G. Alan Marlatt, UW professor of psychology and director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center. The article noted that the impact on a girl of a single drink is about the same as the impact of two drinks for a boy. “They don’t see themselves as being at higher risk than males, but they are,” Marlatt said. “They don’t get that if they’re trying to keep up with their boyfriend, they’re going to get drunk faster. The genders are catching up with each other, the girls with the guys, which isn’t good in this case because of the added risks.”
BOEING BLUES: Bloomberg.com quoted David Olson, UW professor emeritus of political science, in an article about talks between Boeing and its machinists, before the current strike began. Olson, who has studied Boeing for 40 years, said union members know the company can’t afford a strike and so are “feeling a high degree of solidarity” that will be hard for Boeing to match. “I can go back to the 1930s and show similar patterns — when the union is in a strategically strong position, the employers attempt to dilute the power of the union leadership and go around them by appealing directly to the employees,” Olson said. “This tactic rarely succeeds, because workers know what kind of position they’re in.”
Newsmakers is a periodic column reporting on the coverage of the University of Washington by the national press and broadcasting services. Compiled by Peter Kelley
