5 ms·

Reminds me of the surveys that found that men have more partners on average than women. Mathematicians then jump in and show that's not mathematically possible.

by jastr 10y ago

Reminds me of the surveys that found that men have more partners on average than women. Mathematicians then jump in and show that's not mathematically possible. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/weekinreview/12kolata.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/weekinreview/12kolata.html

Legogris 10y ago
Consider that there might be more casual sexual male-male encounters than female-female.
- danw3 10y ago
  According to the linked article the survey was limited to heterosexual individuals.
  - nerdponx 10y ago
    https://m.mic.com/articles/132129/a-surprising-number-of-straight-men-are-having-sex-with-other-men-says-the-cdc#.81kucOr4i https://m.mic.com/articles/132129/a-surprising-number-of-str...
    - jonesetc 10y ago
      Parent slightly misspoke. They asked about heterosexual partners, and not asked heterosexuals about their partners. So homosexual partners would not me included in any counts.
      - mamon 10y ago
        Contrary to popular belief sexual orientation is not a matter of "choice", or temporary mood changes, so it's not like phrasing of the question asked in the survey matters at all. 99% of people have either only heterosexual partners or homosexual partners, not both. Even if homosexuals were included in that survey, and asked about "how many heterosexual partners you had", them answering "0" wouldn't matter at all (provided that there were roughly the same number of gays and lesbians surveyed)
        dragonwriter 10y ago
        > 99% of people have either only heterosexual partners or homosexual partners, not both. Source? Or is this just guesswork? Because the stats I've seen in the past, while varying in numbers, have pretty consistently been that, in the population, from most to least common is: Opposite sex partners only > Both same and opposite sex partners > Same sex partners only. (Don't have any sources handy, but I'll try to find and post some later.)
    - sean-duffy 10y ago
      As a warning to others: this article has a fairly NSFW background image.
yomly 10y ago
MIT OCW Maths for CS does the proof for this here[0] Think the key takeaway really is to frame your question precisely and draw the right conclusions. That you always perceive your friends to be more popular than you, or that surveys of number of sexual partners seem to always suggest men have more partners than women are still interesting - only the actual conclusion may be more nuanced than the superficial takeaway. In the case of sexual promiscuity, my questions are: what social trends are causing the skew in survey results and/or what flaws are pervasive in modern survey taking methodology. We're able to logically prove the fallacy of this particular question, but how many other inferences are we drawing from survey data which are incorrect? [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9wxtqoa1jY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9wxtqoa1jY
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
oneloop 10y ago
Before going any further, can we agree that this effect, whatever it is, is not due to sampling bias?
gleenn 10y ago
The devil is definitely in the details. What do people mean when they say "average". In your paper, the "average" has a denominator of all people, whereas I think some people think the denominator is the number of people of each gender. Imagine a scenario where there was 1 man on earth, and 100 woman. Say that the man slept with half the woman. Now he has slept with 50 women, the male average is 50 partners / 1 male or 50. Half the woman had 1 partner, so 50 woman / 100 total woman slept with 1 man, average 0.5 partners. Easy to show that the average could be swayed one way or another with this average. Cue the mathematicians to show me pedantically why I'm wrong, but it's not about that. It's about the imprecision of English in Buzzfeed articles when using math terms.
- Namrog84 10y ago
  The difference I believe in this average partner case is that the approximate population is split more evenly than your 1:100 ratio. So if you can show an example with different averages and the same population on both sides. I bet you'd win over more people
- pixl97 10y ago
  Isn't it actually a sampling problem? Take your 1:50 50:1 ratio, and now only sample 5 people out of the entire group. If those 5 questioned were women which only had one partner you would miss the 'black swan' that had 50. I would think the question comes if your sample size is large enough to encompass all the outliers that can significantly influence the results. For example in Parent comment a few female sex workers could have sex with hundreds of men, but if not questioned they would be missed. The article 'hand waving' the prostitute effect away without further details is disingenuous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
- 13of40 10y ago
  I apologize in advance for this scenario, but: You have a population of 100 males and 100 females. All the guys have sex with one of the girls, so males' average partners is 1. She then gets a particularly bad rug burn and dies of sepsis. Average females' partners is now 0. Now hold on, fella, don't click that down arrow just yet. It might just be that real life works that way. In our modern society, I would guess that it's rare for a woman to have a hundred sexual partners and end up moving on to a long and prosperous life, but the guy who does the same, unfair as it is, might end up being one of those sociopathic CEOs we all read about. If you do the numbers at any given time, in the real world, there might be more slutty guys currently living than women of the same ilk.

by jastr 10y ago

Legogris 10y ago

Consider that there might be more casual sexual male-male encounters than female-female.

danw3 10y ago
According to the linked article the survey was limited to heterosexual individuals.
- nerdponx 10y ago
  https://m.mic.com/articles/132129/a-surprising-number-of-straight-men-are-having-sex-with-other-men-says-the-cdc#.81kucOr4i https://m.mic.com/articles/132129/a-surprising-number-of-str...
  - jonesetc 10y ago
    Parent slightly misspoke. They asked about heterosexual partners, and not asked heterosexuals about their partners. So homosexual partners would not me included in any counts.
    - mamon 10y ago
      Contrary to popular belief sexual orientation is not a matter of "choice", or temporary mood changes, so it's not like phrasing of the question asked in the survey matters at all. 99% of people have either only heterosexual partners or homosexual partners, not both. Even if homosexuals were included in that survey, and asked about "how many heterosexual partners you had", them answering "0" wouldn't matter at all (provided that there were roughly the same number of gays and lesbians surveyed)
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > 99% of people have either only heterosexual partners or homosexual partners, not both. Source? Or is this just guesswork? Because the stats I've seen in the past, while varying in numbers, have pretty consistently been that, in the population, from most to least common is: Opposite sex partners only > Both same and opposite sex partners > Same sex partners only. (Don't have any sources handy, but I'll try to find and post some later.)
  - sean-duffy 10y ago
    As a warning to others: this article has a fairly NSFW background image.

yomly 10y ago

MIT OCW Maths for CS does the proof for this here[0] Think the key takeaway really is to frame your question precisely and draw the right conclusions. That you always perceive your friends to be more popular than you, or that surveys of number of sexual partners seem to always suggest men have more partners than women are still interesting - only the actual conclusion may be more nuanced than the superficial takeaway. In the case of sexual promiscuity, my questions are: what social trends are causing the skew in survey results and/or what flaws are pervasive in modern survey taking methodology. We're able to logically prove the fallacy of this particular question, but how many other inferences are we drawing from survey data which are incorrect? [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9wxtqoa1jY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9wxtqoa1jY

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

oneloop 10y ago

Before going any further, can we agree that this effect, whatever it is, is not due to sampling bias?

gleenn 10y ago

The devil is definitely in the details. What do people mean when they say "average". In your paper, the "average" has a denominator of all people, whereas I think some people think the denominator is the number of people of each gender. Imagine a scenario where there was 1 man on earth, and 100 woman. Say that the man slept with half the woman. Now he has slept with 50 women, the male average is 50 partners / 1 male or 50. Half the woman had 1 partner, so 50 woman / 100 total woman slept with 1 man, average 0.5 partners. Easy to show that the average could be swayed one way or another with this average. Cue the mathematicians to show me pedantically why I'm wrong, but it's not about that. It's about the imprecision of English in Buzzfeed articles when using math terms.

Namrog84 10y ago
The difference I believe in this average partner case is that the approximate population is split more evenly than your 1:100 ratio. So if you can show an example with different averages and the same population on both sides. I bet you'd win over more people
pixl97 10y ago
Isn't it actually a sampling problem? Take your 1:50 50:1 ratio, and now only sample 5 people out of the entire group. If those 5 questioned were women which only had one partner you would miss the 'black swan' that had 50. I would think the question comes if your sample size is large enough to encompass all the outliers that can significantly influence the results. For example in Parent comment a few female sex workers could have sex with hundreds of men, but if not questioned they would be missed. The article 'hand waving' the prostitute effect away without further details is disingenuous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
13of40 10y ago
I apologize in advance for this scenario, but: You have a population of 100 males and 100 females. All the guys have sex with one of the girls, so males' average partners is 1. She then gets a particularly bad rug burn and dies of sepsis. Average females' partners is now 0. Now hold on, fella, don't click that down arrow just yet. It might just be that real life works that way. In our modern society, I would guess that it's rare for a woman to have a hundred sexual partners and end up moving on to a long and prosperous life, but the guy who does the same, unfair as it is, might end up being one of those sociopathic CEOs we all read about. If you do the numbers at any given time, in the real world, there might be more slutty guys currently living than women of the same ilk.