5 ms·

She's Indian. Does lived experience not matter?

by chewxy 9y ago

dragonwriter 9y ago
“Lived experience” is anecdote, which is a fine way of coming up with hypotheses about generalities, and a very bad basis for asserting any but very weak, tentative conclusions about generalities.
- chewxy 9y ago
  Absolutely. I agree with you. For the purposes of her article, I think it's more than enough. Most discussions about issues of diversity and similar "dangerous ideas" try to use statistics to back them up but often do use statistics terribly. It's better in my opinion to be upfront about anecdotal data.
EliRivers 9y ago
Living one life provides one datum. Given a population of 1.3 billion, it seems a small sample.
- scotty79 9y ago
  South India has population of 1.3 billion? Although I'd like to see some statistics too.
  - EliRivers 9y ago
    All of India has population 1.3 billion
jancsika 9y ago
I was all in until this sentence: > Intelligence was, and still holds the top spot amongst almost all South Indian families. She can say that intelligence is highly valued, and she can say that not a single person she knows or grew up with fought the kinds of battles against sexism we're familiar with in the U.S. Likewise, I can say, "I'm familiar with battles against sexism in the U.S.," without needing to cite or defend a single thing. But the moment either one of us makes a statement to characterize some grouping of people outside of our direct experience, there almost always needs to be more than anecdotal evidence to back it up. Likewise, me saying, "blank is the single greatest problem facing U.S. corporations today," would need citations-- plus probably an elucidated theory. Otherwise I'm just stating my own personal intuition in language that is unreasonably broad. clarification: I changed "all" to "some grouping of people outside of our direct experience." I think that's a much more meaningful way to put it, as it doesn't matter whether someone is talking about "all", "almost all", "most", etc.

She's Indian. Does lived experience not matter?

by chewxy 9y ago

She's Indian. Does lived experience not matter?

“Lived experience” is anecdote, which is a fine way of coming up with hypotheses about generalities, and a very bad basis for asserting any but very weak, tentative conclusions about generalities.

chewxy 9y ago
Absolutely. I agree with you. For the purposes of her article, I think it's more than enough. Most discussions about issues of diversity and similar "dangerous ideas" try to use statistics to back them up but often do use statistics terribly. It's better in my opinion to be upfront about anecdotal data.

EliRivers 9y ago

Living one life provides one datum. Given a population of 1.3 billion, it seems a small sample.

scotty79 9y ago
South India has population of 1.3 billion? Although I'd like to see some statistics too.
- EliRivers 9y ago
  All of India has population 1.3 billion

jancsika 9y ago

I was all in until this sentence: > Intelligence was, and still holds the top spot amongst almost all South Indian families. She can say that intelligence is highly valued, and she can say that not a single person she knows or grew up with fought the kinds of battles against sexism we're familiar with in the U.S. Likewise, I can say, "I'm familiar with battles against sexism in the U.S.," without needing to cite or defend a single thing. But the moment either one of us makes a statement to characterize some grouping of people outside of our direct experience, there almost always needs to be more than anecdotal evidence to back it up. Likewise, me saying, "blank is the single greatest problem facing U.S. corporations today," would need citations-- plus probably an elucidated theory. Otherwise I'm just stating my own personal intuition in language that is unreasonably broad. clarification: I changed "all" to "some grouping of people outside of our direct experience." I think that's a much more meaningful way to put it, as it doesn't matter whether someone is talking about "all", "almost all", "most", etc.