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The title of this piece seems misleading to me, and an example of how many people misunderstand statistics. I haven't seen any of the studies referred to, but
by hsitz 10y ago
The title of this piece seems misleading to me, and an example of how many people misunderstand statistics. I haven't seen any of the studies referred to, but I'm sure they don't establish a connection between wealth and empathy as strong as the one suggested. More likely, they show that rich people, on average, tend to have less empathy than less-rich people. But surely some very rich people have great empathy and some very poor people have very little empathy. And all combinations in between, even if, on average, greater wealth tends to correlate with less empathy.
The point above, I'm sure, is obvious to most people reading HN. But certainly not to everyone, especially people with poor understanding of statistics. So it bothers me that the title seems calculated to increase the likelihood of misunderstanding. Okay, rant over.
- projektir 10y agoThere seems to be a glaring problem in statistics in general that large scale statistics may completely hide small group effects. I.e., if there is something that really benefits from X for 5%, but doesn't benefit from X for 95%, statistics will make it look like it doesn't benefit anybody. Yet that 5% group may absolutely be relevant. This always sits in the back of my head when I read things like: "Children are not influenced by their parents but by their peers", or "twin study proves this". But I haven't seen this discussed much or brought up, even though it sounds a lot like what you're saying. Is this relevant? Is there a name for this? Is there some reason as to why I shouldn't worry about this that I'm missing?