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A profession with 10K workers should randomly expect to be about 80-82% white. From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence_interval

A profession with 10K workers should randomly expect to be about 80-82% white. From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence_interval http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence_... p=0.81 n=10000 and z = 2 gives a 99% confidence interval

sanskritabelt 13y ago
And 90% white is firmly in the "basically impossible by random chance" category.
- daemin 13y ago
  I guess that depends on a uniform distribution of the location of the jobs to the racial characteristics in said location. For instance I would imagine there would be more vets in an area with more animals, perhaps a country or town border region. At the same time those areas might have a higher concentration of white people than the average (with other races preferring a more urban environment).
  - sanskritabelt 13y ago
    They need EMTs just about everywhere (92% white).
    - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
      but they need EMTs who live nearby, just about everywhere - and it does not take much for neighbourhoods and states to clear into distinct patterns by house-purchase preferences (game theoretic economist whose name cannot remember won a prize for this) basically all that is needed is a prefernce for a particular neighbourhood attribute (walk to shops, less black people, more black people, close to hiking routes) and for that preference to be available at that persons clearing price. so, a dribbling knuckle dragging KKK member would pay a lot to avoid living in Harlem (or rather would sacrifice opportunity by staying in Fuckwatsr Alabama.) Take a nice black professional couple - happy to live in well integrated area of Manhattan - till along comes baby. at this point a slightly larger house nearer good schools is desirable - and preferably closer to grandma. Alternatively there is a nice area of Queens (?) that is predominately white but has good schools. Now all it takes is a preference or a feeling of being more comfortable near grandma and near other young mothers "just like me". Since grandma will likely be living in an area where there was traditionally a larger percentage of black families the comfortable preference is near grandma. and who would argue with an expectant mother wanting to be comfortable. At a certain point the cost of being near grandma will exceed the amount they can afford without realising they are making an explicit racist choice. which is I think my preferred definition - not emotional preference but when a conscious decision is made with race as a factor. All this shakes out to mean that levels of preference few if any of us would consider racist, lead to segregated neighbourhoods. luckily other preferences intrude masking the effect. So to help with the discussion, this implies that if everyone was perfectly color blind we would expect to see a 81% ratio. if not what is the level, the error bar, that we accept as emotional preference that does not cross the line ? And how do we tell that difference if the starting population is not 81% in that area ? and if the school district in the area is really bad / good? (nb nationally funded schools systems I would expect see nationally less segregated societies than the USA for this reason) anyway my 2 cents
      - sanskritabelt 13y ago
        Doesn't your segregation hypothesis actually argue in favor of an EMT distribution closer to 81%?
      - sanskritabelt 13y ago
        Also I think the fact that you had to put a question mark after "Queens (?)" suggests that you might be speaking from a position of shelter.
        lifeisstillgood 13y ago
        I simply ran out of parts of New York I can name and associate with good / bad neighbourhoods. hence the ? as a sop to anyone who knows queens enough to laugh out loud at the idea there are any nice parts.
    - wildgift 13y ago
      My guess would be that a large fraction of EMTs are in fire departments. Fire departments are notorious for being full of racists. They were pretty segregated until the mid 20th century, too. As the system was taken over by the government, the pay got good, and it's one of the best jobs someone without college can get. So you can bet that the incumbents would use any weapon, including racism, to discourage competition for these jobs.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- axaxs 13y ago
  For some jobs listed, one could make the argument. For some others, like say - mining machine operator- you'd need a beefier formula that accounts for the fact of where the jobs are located. In many(but not all) areas, the most diverse are the bigger cities. Not going to find many mines in Chicago or New York. That said, the veterinarian one surprised me a bit. I'd be fascinated to read a deeper dive into it. My suspected guess is that in rural areas, many veterinarians make 'house calls', and every resident has a -lot- of livestock, vs inner cities where one veterinarian can service a big chunk of the population. But, again, just a guess.
giardini 13y ago
No. What you meant to say was that a random selection from a population of 10K white and black balls in the ratio 80% white balls & 20% black balls should be expected to be about 80% white. People aren't black or white balls. Other factors (e.g., education, IQ, health, social class, and racism, etc.) are what make the difference. To imply that the difference is attributable purely to racism is naive and wrong-headed.
- lotyrin 13y ago
  Isn't the difference between random chance and the complex realities of race and socioeconomic the entire point? I don't think a definition of racism as historically and culturally naive as to be blind selection bias that exists only in the current moment is worthy of any serious consideration - only useful as a straw man for arguments such as yours here. Any serious consideration of racism involves precisely the factors you mention. Education, nutrition, IQ, are all proxies for social class and I think you have to be quite biased to ignore how race relations throughout history have had direct impact on the current social status of race groups.
- icambron 13y ago
  I think you must have misread the context here. The grandparent's hypothesis was that maybe the results seen here are merely the result of random chance (e.g. white and black balls being drawn from a bag). The parent was testing that hypothesis by checking the probability of getting those results purely by random chance. The answer was no, but no comment was being made about the source of that non-randomness. So yes, attributing all the differences to racism would be naive and wrongheaded (for most definitions of racism), but who's doing that?
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    > The grandparent's hypothesis was that maybe the results seen here are merely the result of random chance Not necessarily my hypothesis per se. Rather, it's the default hypothesis that you're supposed to disprove before you go on to propose other hypotheses. My problem is that I remember the existence and requirement to test the null hypothesis, but not the mechanics of how to do that. Luckily we have some people who are across basic statistics and so the conversation is able to move past "it's probably just chance" to speculate about whys.

sanskritabelt 13y ago

And 90% white is firmly in the "basically impossible by random chance" category.

daemin 13y ago
I guess that depends on a uniform distribution of the location of the jobs to the racial characteristics in said location. For instance I would imagine there would be more vets in an area with more animals, perhaps a country or town border region. At the same time those areas might have a higher concentration of white people than the average (with other races preferring a more urban environment).
- sanskritabelt 13y ago
  They need EMTs just about everywhere (92% white).
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    but they need EMTs who live nearby, just about everywhere - and it does not take much for neighbourhoods and states to clear into distinct patterns by house-purchase preferences (game theoretic economist whose name cannot remember won a prize for this) basically all that is needed is a prefernce for a particular neighbourhood attribute (walk to shops, less black people, more black people, close to hiking routes) and for that preference to be available at that persons clearing price. so, a dribbling knuckle dragging KKK member would pay a lot to avoid living in Harlem (or rather would sacrifice opportunity by staying in Fuckwatsr Alabama.) Take a nice black professional couple - happy to live in well integrated area of Manhattan - till along comes baby. at this point a slightly larger house nearer good schools is desirable - and preferably closer to grandma. Alternatively there is a nice area of Queens (?) that is predominately white but has good schools. Now all it takes is a preference or a feeling of being more comfortable near grandma and near other young mothers "just like me". Since grandma will likely be living in an area where there was traditionally a larger percentage of black families the comfortable preference is near grandma. and who would argue with an expectant mother wanting to be comfortable. At a certain point the cost of being near grandma will exceed the amount they can afford without realising they are making an explicit racist choice. which is I think my preferred definition - not emotional preference but when a conscious decision is made with race as a factor. All this shakes out to mean that levels of preference few if any of us would consider racist, lead to segregated neighbourhoods. luckily other preferences intrude masking the effect. So to help with the discussion, this implies that if everyone was perfectly color blind we would expect to see a 81% ratio. if not what is the level, the error bar, that we accept as emotional preference that does not cross the line ? And how do we tell that difference if the starting population is not 81% in that area ? and if the school district in the area is really bad / good? (nb nationally funded schools systems I would expect see nationally less segregated societies than the USA for this reason) anyway my 2 cents
    - sanskritabelt 13y ago
      Doesn't your segregation hypothesis actually argue in favor of an EMT distribution closer to 81%?
    - sanskritabelt 13y ago
      Also I think the fact that you had to put a question mark after "Queens (?)" suggests that you might be speaking from a position of shelter.
      - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
        I simply ran out of parts of New York I can name and associate with good / bad neighbourhoods. hence the ? as a sop to anyone who knows queens enough to laugh out loud at the idea there are any nice parts.
  - wildgift 13y ago
    My guess would be that a large fraction of EMTs are in fire departments. Fire departments are notorious for being full of racists. They were pretty segregated until the mid 20th century, too. As the system was taken over by the government, the pay got good, and it's one of the best jobs someone without college can get. So you can bet that the incumbents would use any weapon, including racism, to discourage competition for these jobs.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
axaxs 13y ago
For some jobs listed, one could make the argument. For some others, like say - mining machine operator- you'd need a beefier formula that accounts for the fact of where the jobs are located. In many(but not all) areas, the most diverse are the bigger cities. Not going to find many mines in Chicago or New York. That said, the veterinarian one surprised me a bit. I'd be fascinated to read a deeper dive into it. My suspected guess is that in rural areas, many veterinarians make 'house calls', and every resident has a -lot- of livestock, vs inner cities where one veterinarian can service a big chunk of the population. But, again, just a guess.

giardini 13y ago

No. What you meant to say was that a random selection from a population of 10K white and black balls in the ratio 80% white balls & 20% black balls should be expected to be about 80% white. People aren't black or white balls. Other factors (e.g., education, IQ, health, social class, and racism, etc.) are what make the difference. To imply that the difference is attributable purely to racism is naive and wrong-headed.

lotyrin 13y ago
Isn't the difference between random chance and the complex realities of race and socioeconomic the entire point? I don't think a definition of racism as historically and culturally naive as to be blind selection bias that exists only in the current moment is worthy of any serious consideration - only useful as a straw man for arguments such as yours here. Any serious consideration of racism involves precisely the factors you mention. Education, nutrition, IQ, are all proxies for social class and I think you have to be quite biased to ignore how race relations throughout history have had direct impact on the current social status of race groups.
icambron 13y ago
I think you must have misread the context here. The grandparent's hypothesis was that maybe the results seen here are merely the result of random chance (e.g. white and black balls being drawn from a bag). The parent was testing that hypothesis by checking the probability of getting those results purely by random chance. The answer was no, but no comment was being made about the source of that non-randomness. So yes, attributing all the differences to racism would be naive and wrongheaded (for most definitions of racism), but who's doing that?
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  > The grandparent's hypothesis was that maybe the results seen here are merely the result of random chance Not necessarily my hypothesis per se. Rather, it's the default hypothesis that you're supposed to disprove before you go on to propose other hypotheses. My problem is that I remember the existence and requirement to test the null hypothesis, but not the mechanics of how to do that. Luckily we have some people who are across basic statistics and so the conversation is able to move past "it's probably just chance" to speculate about whys.