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Why do you think impassioned personal appeals are worth posting in reply to a comment saying anecdotal evidence is worthless? It seems more like you are trying

Why do you think impassioned personal appeals are worth posting in reply to a comment saying anecdotal evidence is worthless? It seems more like you are trying to convince yourself than trying to convince me.

likpok 18y ago
There is another post on HN (or it was recently) about men vs. women. It discusses (in a reasonably but not strictly rigorous manner) the differences between the sexes. Link: http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
jerf 18y ago
A lot of people have the wrong idea about anecdotal evidence. There's the people who thinks it substitutes for proof... but there's also the people who think it's worthless. Both are wrong. A universal claim can be disproven with a single counterexample. A nearly universal claim like "Almost all gender role is social" can be disproven with nearly a single counterexample. (Or, if you want to get technical, rendered so improbably as to no longer be worth considering.) I don't need to convince myself. I never bought into the transparently-false idea in the first place. Having kids just made it more transparently false. Don't buy into the "anecdotes aren't data" line so hard that you go around living life with your eyes closed. That's no more rational than ignoring science entirely.
- xenophanes 18y ago
  No one has any anecdote which disproves "all gender role is social". For example, parents saying they didn't treat their opposite-gender kids different is useless. They did treat the kids different: different names, different clothes, and many other things. What they really mean is they didn't treat the kids different in any relevant way. But how do they know that? Now they are making a philosophical and non-evidence-based claim. Hardly a courter example.
  - jerf 18y ago
    I actually cut you some slack and upgraded the point to "Almost all gender role is social." To disprove "All gender role is social", it technically suffices to show only one example of a gender role that could not possibly be social. I actually cite many (as I consider each child I know a separate data point). It should also be pointed out that it's non-trivial, which is why I shared it in the first place; even very knowledgeable non-parents (such as I was) can be surprised by the reality. I thought I might be overstretching with that bit about not buying into the "line", but maybe not. Logic 101, universals can be disproven with a single counterexample. Logic 301 or so, very-nearly-universals can be rendered implausibly unlikely with just a few counterexamples with little regard to distribution. That only works on very-nearly-universals, but it's perfectly sound. (I'm not out to show that gender is 100% biological, only that 100% social is an absurdity.) Anecdotes may not be "data", but there are logically-legitimate uses they can be put to.
    - xenophanes 18y ago
      Do you understand that an anecdote where you interpret a situation (possibly according to some bias or mistake), and a valid data point which can be a counter-example to a universal, are different things?

likpok 18y ago

There is another post on HN (or it was recently) about men vs. women. It discusses (in a reasonably but not strictly rigorous manner) the differences between the sexes. Link: http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

jerf 18y ago

A lot of people have the wrong idea about anecdotal evidence. There's the people who thinks it substitutes for proof... but there's also the people who think it's worthless. Both are wrong. A universal claim can be disproven with a single counterexample. A nearly universal claim like "Almost all gender role is social" can be disproven with nearly a single counterexample. (Or, if you want to get technical, rendered so improbably as to no longer be worth considering.) I don't need to convince myself. I never bought into the transparently-false idea in the first place. Having kids just made it more transparently false. Don't buy into the "anecdotes aren't data" line so hard that you go around living life with your eyes closed. That's no more rational than ignoring science entirely.

xenophanes 18y ago
No one has any anecdote which disproves "all gender role is social". For example, parents saying they didn't treat their opposite-gender kids different is useless. They did treat the kids different: different names, different clothes, and many other things. What they really mean is they didn't treat the kids different in any relevant way. But how do they know that? Now they are making a philosophical and non-evidence-based claim. Hardly a courter example.
- jerf 18y ago
  I actually cut you some slack and upgraded the point to "Almost all gender role is social." To disprove "All gender role is social", it technically suffices to show only one example of a gender role that could not possibly be social. I actually cite many (as I consider each child I know a separate data point). It should also be pointed out that it's non-trivial, which is why I shared it in the first place; even very knowledgeable non-parents (such as I was) can be surprised by the reality. I thought I might be overstretching with that bit about not buying into the "line", but maybe not. Logic 101, universals can be disproven with a single counterexample. Logic 301 or so, very-nearly-universals can be rendered implausibly unlikely with just a few counterexamples with little regard to distribution. That only works on very-nearly-universals, but it's perfectly sound. (I'm not out to show that gender is 100% biological, only that 100% social is an absurdity.) Anecdotes may not be "data", but there are logically-legitimate uses they can be put to.
  - xenophanes 18y ago
    Do you understand that an anecdote where you interpret a situation (possibly according to some bias or mistake), and a valid data point which can be a counter-example to a universal, are different things?