4 ms·

You said "If you collected statistics about Americans in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals (shocker of shockers)."

by jimmyk 10y ago

You said "If you collected statistics about Americans in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals (shocker of shockers).". I'm challenging you on that. I think your statistics would show that certain classes of Americans are comparatively very criminally oriented, and certain classes of Americans are not. Similarly, if you collected statistics about foreigners in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that foreigners here without a visa of any kind are much more criminally oriented than foreigners here on, for example, a student visa. You seem to want to dismiss the usefulness of those statistics just because they're only dealing with a particular segment of the population.

chongli 10y ago
I think your statistics would show that certain classes of Americans are comparatively very criminally oriented, and certain classes of Americans are not. I didn't say anything about certain classes of Americans. I said that if you sampled the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals in general. That is the point. Asking a police officer about their experiences with immigrants is extremely biased. Just as asking a surgeon about athletes is biased (hint: surgeons have a lot more contact with injured athletes than the average person).
- jimmyk 10y ago
  Asking a police officer about their experiences with immigrants is extremely biased. So I ask again (and I won't use students this time, since you didn't get the point the first time): If you asked police officers about their experiences with immigrants here on E1 visas, would you conclude that people here on E1 visas are a bunch of criminals? What does that tell you about people here on E1 visas?
- sanguine234 10y ago
  Police deal with criminals day in and day out. Not sure how they will be biased? Asking surgeon about athletes is biased? Again I do not get that. However lets go with that little further. Based on that theory, asking a Mathematician about mathematics is biased too, correct? Asking a scientist about scientific method to solve a problem is biased too, starting to sound weird, yet? If still you do not get it, go to FBI website and look up statistics about different races and their crime statistics. May be FBI is biased too about Crime? Sorry, had to add it there, cannot help:)

by jimmyk 10y ago

chongli 10y ago

I think your statistics would show that certain classes of Americans are comparatively very criminally oriented, and certain classes of Americans are not. I didn't say anything about certain classes of Americans. I said that if you sampled the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals in general. That is the point. Asking a police officer about their experiences with immigrants is extremely biased. Just as asking a surgeon about athletes is biased (hint: surgeons have a lot more contact with injured athletes than the average person).

jimmyk 10y ago
Asking a police officer about their experiences with immigrants is extremely biased. So I ask again (and I won't use students this time, since you didn't get the point the first time): If you asked police officers about their experiences with immigrants here on E1 visas, would you conclude that people here on E1 visas are a bunch of criminals? What does that tell you about people here on E1 visas?
sanguine234 10y ago
Police deal with criminals day in and day out. Not sure how they will be biased? Asking surgeon about athletes is biased? Again I do not get that. However lets go with that little further. Based on that theory, asking a Mathematician about mathematics is biased too, correct? Asking a scientist about scientific method to solve a problem is biased too, starting to sound weird, yet? If still you do not get it, go to FBI website and look up statistics about different races and their crime statistics. May be FBI is biased too about Crime? Sorry, had to add it there, cannot help:)