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An unmentioned problem is the idea of norms, a moddishness that is sometimes equated with 'science', whatever that is. Humans - species, biology - is not normat
by astazangasta 10y ago
An unmentioned problem is the idea of norms, a moddishness that is sometimes equated with 'science', whatever that is. Humans - species, biology - is not normative, it is diverse. Genetic diversity means two individuals are not just variation from a mean, they are different. The attempt to produce summations of what a human should be is flawed at the root. But we are too attached to Gaussians and standard deviations, so I imagine we'll continue beating our heads against this wall in a vain attempt to create a knowledge that can't exist.
- chewyshine 10y agoDoesn't the diversity get represented in the standard deviation of the distribution? The Gaussian distribution is more than just a convenient statistical assumption. Normal and power law distributions seem to be consistent with a remarkable array of human diversity and central tendencies.
- astazangasta 10y agoYes, the central limit theorem is great because it conveniently masks complexity and lets us represent diversity as outliers on a spectrum. But the basic model of a Gaussian - of a central tendency and deviations from it - doesn't represent the biological reality, that the "central tendency" is only the product of our summary, and that there is no gross general 'generating' principle underlying it. That is - the outliers often differ from the mean in a biological system because they are fundamentally different; they have different underlying biology, and while we might be able to place everybody on the same normal distribution, any conclusions we draw based on that normal won't apply to individuals whose private variation makes them behave differently.