It’s always nice to discover that there is already a name for a phenomenon I’ve observed, in this case the fact that in any poll, roughly 4% of respondents will claim to agree with any statement, regardless of how outlandish it is. Until last week, I didn’t know there was a name for that, then I saw this article in Reason:
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released [January 14th] found a staggering 4 percent of Americans favor the idea of seizing Greenland with military force…the Lizardman’s Constant…[is] a term coined by Scott Alexander in 2013 to describe the surprisingly consistent finding that 4 percent of people will say they believe utterly outlandish things when polled—things like “human-sized lizards wearing skin suits control the world.” Note that I didn’t write 4 percent of people believe that. They just say that they do. Some of them might truly believe such a thing, but mostly the Lizardman’s Constant is a reminder that any poll will contain some responses from people who are trolling or giving answers at random (or who are deeply disconnected from reality). All of which means we can’t be certain that Trump’s threat to seize Greenland by force is actually supported by 4 percent of Americans. It’s just as likely, given Lizardman’s Constant, that there may not be hardly any Americans who genuinely support this idea…
Expressed more simply: when reading a poll, a result of 4% is essentially a de facto “nobody”.
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