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How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating
- jacquesm 17y agoNon-hacking, race & religion in one article, that's got to be a record for flamebait.
- showerst 17y agoI'd argue that it's quite a hack -- Trying to discern an algorithmic approach to attraction via a large data set, and create a recommendation engine to a very fuzzy problem. =)
- potatolicious 17y agoI'd argue that it's not at all a "hack" (I really dislike HN's tendency to equate everything to a hack), but nonetheless of significant interest to those of us interested in statistical trends in large web systems and social networks. This kind of statistical kung-fu is well worth a look even if your own interests do not lie in dating sites.
- jacquesm 17y agoYes, but these are the results of the hack, not the hack itself. OkCupid has a nice thing going but this is not about their software, this is about trends they've picked out of their database of dating profiles. And it's not like we haven't been here before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=822782 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=822782 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=803603 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=803603 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66129 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66129
- natrius 17y agoIt's not flamebait at all. The data is all about people's responses to generic questions about what they're looking for in a date. They don't say "I don't want to date Muslims" and have that reflected in match scores. The match score is based on things like "I hate people who squeeze the toothpaste from the middle." It's quite interesting.
- jacquesm 17y agoTo put data based on 'race & religion' out in the open to me is already a thing that is not excusable (besides the lousy definition of such things as race and religion, both of which are floating, not discrete). There is a massive pre-selection problem here (people that frequent dating sites, rather than people in general) and the link to 'hacking' is a very tenuous one. I've seen Michael Jackson referred to as a hacker here, so I probably shouldn't be too surprised. This is not a hack, this is some statistical analysis with input data of dubious value, pretty pictures and all, drawing conclusions that are completely off the wall. "Jews and Agnostics get along better with people" "Muslims of both sexes and Hindu men get along worse" "Catholics are more universally liked than Protestants" Please, if that isn't flamebait I really don't know what is. Where are the control groups, where are the standard deviations and so on. Effectively this is a dating advert for programmers. This is infotainment at it's best, statistical noise at its worst.
- gloob 17y agoI'll agree that it's not a hack - that doesn't, in my mind, preclude it from being hacking. They're two different things. For me, anyway, playing with giant data sets does not fall into the first group, but does fall into the second. That said, "is it hacking or not" isn't really a terribly interesting meta-discussion to have, imho, so I'll try and go in a different direction. Please, if that isn't flamebait I really don't know what is. The data appears to support the assertions you are calling flamebait. Provided their algorithm for calculating likeability actually works, then the data does support the assertions[1]. (This is all, of course, within the context of the pre-selection you noted in your post). [1] Note that the assertions are of the form "Members of Set X are more likeable to members of Set Y than members of Set Z". If the assertions were "Being a member of Set X makes you more likeable to members of Set Y", they wouldn't necessarily be supported by the data.
- jacquesm 17y agoIf you're going to make this kind of generalizing statement about large groups of people I simply think that you have the responsibility to do it properly, so with control groups and so on, or not at all, otherwise the results are totally meaningless. The way it is presented right now is as if simply the size of OkCupid and their data gathering methods give them the license to make this kind of claim. It's 'interesting' but not 'rigorous'. The three I listed above are particularly galling, I really don't think any computing algorithm can give someone license to make the statements listed above (and as an atheist I have no dog in that fight), but without proper methods it's even worse.
- bdr 17y agoI'm loving this blog. Have we seen match percent vs reply rate anywhere?
- jrockway 17y agoI think this is probably too biased, as messages from users with a close match percentage are highlighted in your "inbox". The data might not be good enough to discern between "replied to message because it was highlighted" and "replied to message becuase match % was high". (Personally, I have a feeling that "pretty profile picture" is more influential than "high match %". But of course, it's very hard to measure what one considers physically attractive.)
- dmoney 17y agoThey need to make it a little more clear that they're not trying to say anything bad about a particular group.
- shalmanese 17y agoOne possible explanation for the low Hindu-Hindu match is that there are many websites dedicated to specifically Hindu dating which means that the Hindus using OkCupid are those who are specifically not looking for a Hindu date. For other religions, such sites aren't nearly as prevalent.
- gambling8nt 17y agoI was going to post a comment directly disagreeing with this, and citing the large number of Jewish dating sites, but these are really only used by people on the more religious end of the spectrum, so it is possible that the effect is more prevalent in the Hindu-Hindu match calculations than in Jew-Jew match calculations. I would posit, however, that this effect, along with the self-selection bias of using a multi-cultural dating website, is almost certainly the cause for the tendency for higher matches towards non-relgious people.
- neilk 17y agoJDate and similar sites aren't exactly religious. There are lots of secular Jews who would prefer to date or marry another Jew, for ethnic, cultural, or national reasons.
- kelnos 17y agoTrue, I think part of the confusion stems from the fact that you can have "secular Jews," since the Jewish way of life seems to be a bit more than just about religion (not saying the religion isn't an important part of it). If someone were to say "secular Christian" I'd look at them funny.
- btilly 17y agoGiven that strongly religious people (of whatever religion) had a harder time matching, removing the most religious Jews would improve the compatibility of the remaining Jews.
- alanthonyc 17y agoNot really. The matches are based on answers users give to questions (both site designed and user designed). When the blogger says they don't match, it means: - Person A: I like X - Person B: I don't like people who like X Where X could mean ice cream, god or tooth-brushing. It has nothing to do with people selecting the race or religion of the people they think they want to date.
- sharpn 17y agoI liked this on a few different levels: -Hacking data to reveal the answers to important difficult questions. -Exploring contentious issues in a neutral & intelligent way. -Great example of how to attract potential customers by providing valuable information that also gently demonstrates competence related to your service & differentiates your offering from competitors. I enjoyed reading this, I learnt something, and I thought favourably of the website based on this. No idea how good they are, but that post was a good marketing lesson.
- ilyak 17y agoReally-really interesting. I'm curious why asian females scored worst of all when asian males scored descent.
- hughprime 17y agoThe differences on the race graph are so small as to be insignificant.
- codexon 17y agoThe reason is because at that point they already decided to interact with people of a different race. If you want a more interesting result, take a look at my other comment for a diagram that shows response rates between different races. It illustrates a greater schism that one would come to expect.
- hughprime 17y agoCome to think of it, the differences on the race graph are amazingly small, given how strongly race is correlated with certain religions -- (e.g. middle-eastern people are much more likely to be Muslim, and almost all Hindus are Indian.)
- pyre 17y agoKeep in mind that the 'Match %' is based on OKCupid.com's algorithms that number crunch against quiz answers that the users answer. This has nothing to do with 'success rate' of users on the site hooking up with other users.
- codexon 17y agoThey left out the axis on the "message reply rate" diagram as a teaser for the next blog post. I just copy and pasted the image onto the axis. It shows that white and native American males are more likely to get responses than the other races. http://www.codexon.com/temp/mrr.png http://www.codexon.com/temp/mrr.png And I wrote a small analysis here if you can be bothered to take a look. http://www.codexon.com/posts/okcupid-dating-statistics-shows-racism-very-much-alive http://www.codexon.com/posts/okcupid-dating-statistics-shows...
- camccann 17y agoAssuming they didn't deliberately shuffle the ordering just to confound people like you. Your results look depressingly plausible, though, so I'm guessing not.
- potatolicious 17y agoAs a single male Asian I am praying that the first row isn't me. But odds are it is anyway :( It certainly conforms with stereotypes about Asian girls...
- araneae 17y agoYou're lucky to be an Asian male... look at the black male line. It's the only one that doesn't have a single green square. EDIT: Also, look at the response line from black females; they're all green except for the yellow square in response to black males.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- araneae 17y agoHaha are you a THChubber? Yeah, there isn't... it sucks and I've been reduced to chatting on HN. What was your hub name?
- alextp 17y agoThis is hilariously interesting. Data mining can always bring good insights if you have good data. I wonder, though, (a) if most people search for similar people or for different people, (b) how well does the matching percentage really reflect a "liking probability" (ie, there is always some wishful thinking when designing date profiles, and some of that might be counter-productive, ruling out good matches).
- elai 17y agoIt seems like recently immigrated groups who are not established and similar disadvantaged groups of people do worse than the established.
- Chukwu 17y agoWhile I love the number crunching ethos, and think these guys are giving it one hell of a go - I will go on the record and say that they will ultimately fail because they are operating under many false premises, a few being: 1. People do not change their minds. By algorithmically matching based on answers to questions, you must assume that those answers are meaningful. And meaningful means CONSISTENT. And people are NOT consistent. Especially on complex issues; in fact there are whole professions (sales (insurance, real estate, car, etc) comes immediately to mind) where success is based on one's ability to get people to change their minds. (That example is offered as evidence, not proof - but proof probably isnt a complicated exercise) 2. Like Thinkers make Great Daters Assuming you are even GETTING like thinkers, (which is tenuous at best) where is it written that like thinkers make great companions? You don't want to have absolutely nothing in common, (at least a common language is necessary) but it isn't linear and i would be surprised if there were any correlation let alone one that was non-asymptotic. Simply - more like thoughts does not entail more compatibility. 3. Looks aren't EVERYTHING Just based on sheer observation - this is not the case. It is unfortunate, and it speaks badly about human nature, but most human beings make judgments based on appearances. And this "appearance crutch" is only exacerbated when it comes to looking for someone to lay with. How many single, male, bleeding heart liberals would take a swing at Sarah Palin if given an iota of an opportunity? Again - offered as evidence, not proof.
- philwelch 17y ago"By algorithmically matching based on answers to questions, you must assume that those answers are meaningful. And meaningful means CONSISTENT. And people are NOT consistent." In practice, the user base for OkCupid will change. And old users will reanswer questions sometimes too. "Assuming you are even GETTING like thinkers, (which is tenuous at best) where is it written that like thinkers make great companions?" That's not how it works. It's not as simple as "answer match questions and we hook you up with people who answered the same way". You can specify which answers your ideal match would give, even if those answers conflict with the answers you yourself give. "most human beings make judgments based on appearances" Which is why you upload photos to OkCupid instead of just using match percentages.
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- CatBaby 17y agoI can only imagine what else OkCupid's data would reveal in adept hands. I could probably write a book if they sent me a spreadsheet.
- papersmith 17y agoAm I the only one who had a good chuckle at the zodiac grid?
- electromagnetic 17y agoI was laughing before that with this: > ". . . I point this out now so that, below, when we claim that Jewish women are easier to get along with than Christians, you don’t blame us, you blame Jesus."
- padmapper 17y agoNope, hilarious. And that's the first really solid evidence that I've seen shared that zodiac signs are utter BS, which makes me doubly grateful to them. Something to point to when someone says it can't be proved otherwise...
- ZitchDog 17y agoThe best evidence against astrology I've heard came from my college astronomy professor. Basically, due to the precession of the earth on its axis, the constellations are visible at completely different times than they were when astrology was invented. So even if it wasn't BS back then, it sure is now. http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/your-astronomical-sign.html http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/your-astronomical-sig...
- padmapper 17y agoOoh, even more portable, no computer needed. Thanks!
- kingkawn 17y agogo jews!
- jrockway 17y agoThe atheists and agnostics beat the jews, however.
- kingkawn 17y agoactually because of the response of muslim women to jews being more positive than to ath/agn, I think Jewish men overall come out on top. Combine that with Jewish men who ARE atheists, which is a good number of em, and you've got a super-match. Which all goes to prove what my mother always told me; "I love you."
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- dkokelley 17y agoFavorite line of the article: "If religion is a minefield, then race is a field that’s just one giant mine" The article was not quite as statistically sound as it could be, but at least they aren't trying to pass it off as statistical data.
- SeanLuke 17y agoSo many statistics. So little statistical significance testing. This tells me much about this service.
- lamby 17y agoI'm not sure it's valid to infer that their entire service is poor from these series of rather niche blog posts. (Although saying that, I wonder if this series of theirs is to attract press attention? If so, then it would be nice to see some significance data.)
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- stonemetal 17y agoMaybe they just tend to be more likely to tell people to f off. A reply isn't always a good reply. I would think you would need to look at conversation rates.
- GrandMasterBirt 17y agoBullshit, us pastaferians are not represented in the religious statistics! This is heracy! On the other hand I am glad I'm not Aquarius because statistically speaking they are insignificantly less compatible with an Aquarius. His noodelieness has blessed me well! RAmen!
- stakent 17y agoBrilliant. Free publicity. Great lesson in PR. Thank you.
- ALee 17y agoThe article fails to mention statistical significance of race versus religion? Because this data makes sense, I hesitate to protest. Nevertheless, I'd be interested to see if race is statistically significant versus religion.
- known 17y agoEndogamous marriages in Ashkenazi Jews have resulted in serious genetic disorders and hereditary diseases. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews#Specific_diseases_and_disorders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews#Specific_disease...
- stevejohnson 17y agoCould you elaborate on how this relates to the article? I'm sure you have an interesting point to make, but I find it difficult to extrapolate.