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White men can't play basketball. Japanese people are good at math. Black men just aren't as intelligent. What you said is just as stupid, also you just did thi

by mhurron 12y ago

White men can't play basketball. Japanese people are good at math. Black men just aren't as intelligent. What you said is just as stupid, also you just did this: https://xkcd.com/385/ https://xkcd.com/385/

lmm 12y ago
In the statistical, average sense, those things are true, aren't they? So why are they stupid? I mean sure, it would be stupid to ignore someone's actual, demonstrated basketball skill just because they're not black. But it's just as stupid to stick our heads in the sand and pretend these patterns don't exist. Generalizing from a sample of 1 girl would indeed be stupid. But at some point you have to start making inferences.
- arrrg 12y ago
  No, you don’t. You really don’t. Judge people for who they are. Individually. Do not presuppose things. Done. It’s quite simple.
- imgabe 12y ago
  If a room has 9 people with a net worth of $0 and Bill Gates in it, then in the statistical, average sense the net worth of everyone in the room is $7.6 billion dollars. But the average doesn't really tell you anything about one particular person.
  - lmm 12y ago
    It tells you something. It might still make the room a good place to pitch your savings product for wealthy investors. Of course more detail is better, but you have to work with what you know (and look to learn more when you can).
    - imgabe 12y ago
      It tells you something about the group as a whole (not any individual member of the group) IF you are able to gather enough data to have a representative sample of the population. If you were only able to get the net worth of 20% of the people in the above room, the vast majority of the time you'd conclude that the average net worth of the room is $0. There are some 3.5 billion women on the planet. Do you think you've reviewed the programming work of enough of them to constitute a representative sample? > You have to work with what you know Yes, what I'm pointing out is that you don't have enough information to claim to know anything.
    - sampo 12y ago
      > a good place to pitch your savings product for wealthy investors I think Bill Gates is trying to spend his money, not save it.
  - kefka 12y ago
    Wrong. Applying basic statistic controls would eliminate Gates from the pool as an outlier. The outlier would then be listed aside the mean. That is... unless you mean median, or range. Then those are terribly different numbers.

by mhurron 12y ago

lmm 12y ago

In the statistical, average sense, those things are true, aren't they? So why are they stupid? I mean sure, it would be stupid to ignore someone's actual, demonstrated basketball skill just because they're not black. But it's just as stupid to stick our heads in the sand and pretend these patterns don't exist. Generalizing from a sample of 1 girl would indeed be stupid. But at some point you have to start making inferences.

arrrg 12y ago
No, you don’t. You really don’t. Judge people for who they are. Individually. Do not presuppose things. Done. It’s quite simple.
imgabe 12y ago
If a room has 9 people with a net worth of $0 and Bill Gates in it, then in the statistical, average sense the net worth of everyone in the room is $7.6 billion dollars. But the average doesn't really tell you anything about one particular person.
- lmm 12y ago
  It tells you something. It might still make the room a good place to pitch your savings product for wealthy investors. Of course more detail is better, but you have to work with what you know (and look to learn more when you can).
  - imgabe 12y ago
    It tells you something about the group as a whole (not any individual member of the group) IF you are able to gather enough data to have a representative sample of the population. If you were only able to get the net worth of 20% of the people in the above room, the vast majority of the time you'd conclude that the average net worth of the room is $0. There are some 3.5 billion women on the planet. Do you think you've reviewed the programming work of enough of them to constitute a representative sample? > You have to work with what you know Yes, what I'm pointing out is that you don't have enough information to claim to know anything.
  - sampo 12y ago
    > a good place to pitch your savings product for wealthy investors I think Bill Gates is trying to spend his money, not save it.
- kefka 12y ago
  Wrong. Applying basic statistic controls would eliminate Gates from the pool as an outlier. The outlier would then be listed aside the mean. That is... unless you mean median, or range. Then those are terribly different numbers.