5 ms·
Serious question, but is it not true (statistically speaking)? Ex source: Charles Murray's The Bell Curve, for instance.
by RedComet 4y ago
Serious question, but is it not true (statistically speaking)?
Ex source: Charles Murray's The Bell Curve, for instance.
- krallja 4y agoIt doesn’t matter, either way. You can’t use statistical measurements on individuals.
- cato_the_elder 4y agoOf course you can. To take it to the extreme, should doctors (or public health campaigns) assume that men and women have an equal chance of breast cancer?
- krallja 4y agoAgain, it doesn’t matter whether there’s a different chance. As the man’s physician, should I rule out breast cancer because the patient is a man?
- cato_the_elder 4y ago> As the man’s physician, should I rule out breast cancer because the patient is a man? Not exactly. But even given the very same inconclusive evidence, you probably should assign a lower probability to a man having breast cancer than you would for woman. Simply because the priors are different.
- krallja 4y agoBut you wouldn’t ignore the evidence completely, which is what happened to the NFL in this case. They decided “on average Black players have less dementia, as a race they have lower baseline cognitive capacity” which is at once racist, stupid, and incorrect. The hypothetical doctor needs to consult radiology, despite the patient being male. And the NFL needs to find a more individualized test for dementia, taking into account each individual’s former mental capacity, not lazily using a single evidence-free racial marker that also happens to save them a bunch of money.
- RedComet 4y agoWhile another reply shows that you're principally wrong, it may also be practically wrong. The author implies that the test was designed with malice, when infact it may be quite appropriate.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]