Why prejudice is stupid, or the distribution is not the mean

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Lately, we've had a number of threads here on topics that suggest (to me, anyhow) discriminiation on the basis of race and gender. I think it's worth reminding everyone of a bit of relevant math. Don't worry - it's all graphs and curves; no complex equations or anything like that.

Hypothetical situation. Let's say we have two groups: Group A and Group B. Both groups have different aggregate characteristics; some of these characteristics can be plotted as a curve like this one:

Don't worry about the title or the units; it's just a handy graph I found through a quick Google search that had the right shape. For our hypothetical example, let's assume that the blue line describes Group A and the red line describes Group B, and let's make the X axis... oh, say height in feet.

So, the average height for Group A is 4 feet, but most members aren't 4 feet. Most are either shorter or taller. Similarly, the average height for Group B is 6 feet, but most members of the group are either shorter or taller than this average.

Now... a question: would it be reasonable to say that any particular A is shorter than any particular B? No, it's not, and the reason why is the purple zone of the graph.

It's not reasonable to expect that the height of the member of a group is going to equal the average for their group. In fact, this assumption is false most of the time. Any individual member of the group is going to inhabit some point along the group's curve, but you can't know which point until you find out more information about that specific individual.

That purple zone is the overlap between the two curves. This is the region where individual members of Group A are taller than members of Group B, even though, on average, Group B is taller than Group A. And even though the average heights of the two groups are fairly widely separated, that purple zone is still quite large.

And this is for a hypothetical curve that doesn't mean anything. In my experience, the graphs that describe differences between groups of human beings more often look like this:

So... to sum up: even if your statistics are valid and your averages are based on real data (which is a pretty big "if" in a lot of these cases of prejudice, IMO), it's flat-out stupid to draw inferences about individual people based on the average characteristics of the groups to which they belong, because the individual is not the average of their group.

If you want to make rational, valid judgements based on the height, or intelligence, or anything else about a person, you need to know more than just what group the person belongs to. In most cases, you have to actually measure or talk to the person yourself.

So there you go - that's what I had to get out. Thanks for indulging me in my rant.

 

[Drolefille]

:clap:foryou::group::clap2::takeabow:

 

[Reverend Rick]

One would think people would celebrate our differences instead of hating each other for them.

 

[elmarna]

In this day and age 1 would think that knowing ourself we can therfore "realize" that speaking of others as offensive only captures a concept that humans and humanity is a world that can only be looked upon with no greatness to consider!
While I have mentioned this before : all people - love, laugh, cry , struggle, and want the best for their children; it fails to appear to those captivated by the idea that in the diversity of man the source of all they look upon could offer them something that responds with virtue if it acts differently. Sometimes I feel it is fear more than misunderstanding or arrogance. While the realist knows we all breath , eat , and die as the human animal. It is not the race that keeps us a part most of the time, but, the beliefs. Be it the political arena, the social structure, ect.
Why can't we all get along? I think... It is best to say - until we all want to prejudgest will be a world where bridges are hard to build. It will not stop me from trying.
I can only say that in my lifetime I can see improvement since I was born and if it keeps moveing in that direction children of the future will be able to ask what predjudgdist is because they lack the understanding of it and follow a source of indspiration free to see life in a good light!

 

[cablescavenger]

So... to sum up: even if your statistics are valid and your averages are based on real data (which is a pretty big "if" in a lot of these cases of prejudice, IMO), it's flat-out stupid to draw inferences about individual people based on the average characteristics of the groups to which they belong, because the individual is not the average of their group.

If you want to make rational, valid judgements based on the height, or intelligence, or anything else about a person, you need to know more than just what group the person belongs to. In most cases, you have to actually measure or talk to the person yourself.

So there you go - that's what I had to get out. Thanks for indulging me in my rant.

I best go tell Emo his joke is redundant now

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off.
So I ran over and said "Stop! don't do it!"
"Why shouldn't I?" he said.
I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!"
He said, "Like what?"
I said, "Well...are you religious or atheist?"
He said, "Religious."
I said, "Me too! Are you christian or buddhist?"
He said, "Christian."
I said, "Me too! Are you catholic or protestant?"
He said, "Protestant."
I said, "Me too! Are you episcopalian or baptist?"
He said, "Baptist!"
I said,"Wow! Me too! Are you baptist church of god or baptist church of the lord?"
He said, "Baptist church of god!"
I said, "Me too! Are you original baptist church of god, or are you reformed baptist church of god?"
He said,"Reformed Baptist church of god!" I said, "Me too!
Are you reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?"
He said, "Reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!"
I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off.

-- Emo Phillips

 

[nnmartin]

how about prejudice in the case of religion?

don't see too many Christian lovers in these parts or in the outside world.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Prejudice is not stupid... but it is dangerous.
There is always a perfectly good reason why some one is prejudiced. It may be totally wrong in other peoples minds, bur Prejudice is little more than opinion, based on what others believe are false premise.
When I was a boy i thought all black men had tight curly hair. That is the way they were always pictured, it is the way they were shown on Marmalade jars, so it had to be true. What we learn and believe can be completely irrational.

My favourite book at the time was John Buchan's "Prester John".
A very exciting yarn set mostly in South Africa and Rhodesia , but totally unacceptable by todays standards of Viewing racial prejudice. It is still a good book, that shows the political and racial tensions and perspectives of the time in a very clear way. John Buchan did not think of himself nor was thought prejudiced. He supported the aspirations of the Native Africans, and thought them to be intelligent but mostly uneducated and very dangerous. This was the experience of most Europeans of that period.

 

[Koldo]

When I was a boy i thought all black men had tight curly hair.

That is actually not too far from the truth depending on what you undestand by 'black men'.
I suspect what you got wrong was the 'tight' part.

 

[cablescavenger]

So... to sum up: even if your statistics are valid and your averages are based on real data (which is a pretty big "if" in a lot of these cases of prejudice, IMO), it's flat-out stupid to draw inferences about individual people based on the average characteristics of the groups to which they belong, because the individual is not the average of their group.

If you want to make rational, valid judgements based on the height, or intelligence, or anything else about a person, you need to know more than just what group the person belongs to. In most cases, you have to actually measure or talk to the person yourself.

So there you go - that's what I had to get out. Thanks for indulging me in my rant.

I liked your graphs

You illustrated quite nicely why prejudice isn't accurate, and I agree with it all except for where you say it is stupid.

Prejudice is perfectly natural and if it was not for prejudice man along with many other members of the animal kingdom would have been wiped out.

At the base level prejudice is just making an assumption or forming a view with imperfect knowledge.

Often this imperfect view is all we have to guide us and many people rely on these views for information or protection.

The issue is not when the views are used for information or protection but when the views lead to some kind of crime or persecution.

 

[ChristineES]

We should see people as they truly are, not what we perceive them to be because of race, religion, nationality, ethnic group, lifestyle, sexual preference, and so on. I see each person as being totally unique from others. And the most interesting people are the ones who may, at first, seem a little odd.

 

[Quintessence]

If you want to make rational, valid judgements based on the height, or intelligence, or anything else about a person, you need to know more than just what group the person belongs to.

Technically, you do not provided you avoid making statements that overstep the data. Your average person, though, doesn't tend to do this; instead we make absolute-sounding comments in casual conversation and are not mindful enough of our choice of words. I can very rationally say that given one person is male and another is female, there is a greater probability of the male being taller than the female with knowing no other information whatsoever. It's if I say the male must be taller than the female that you can fairly say I'm full of crap. Subtle distinction, but an important one I think.

 

[nnmartin]

of course in reality one cannot get to know anything about most people so prejudice is needed to some extent.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

The OP has a horrible understanding of statistics. The bell curve is the probability of the observed results given the null is true. It is an assumption, usually supported by hypothesis testing of the probability of the results if a random sample was taken. The entire statistical method was never meant to claim certainties about anything, especially individual observations. The reason it is on a bell curve is to factor in deviation from the mean. Group comparisons are more involved then just looking at bell curves.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The OP has a horrible understanding of statistics.

Yet you ended up making the same conclusion that the OP argued:

Group comparisons are more involved then just looking at bell curves.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

Yet you ended up making the same conclusion that the OP argued:

How about you learn statistics before you start giving lessons on it.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

Lately, we've had a number of threads here on topics that suggest (to me, anyhow) discriminiation on the basis of race and gender. I think it's worth reminding everyone of a bit of relevant math. Don't worry - it's all graphs and curves; no complex equations or anything like that.

Hypothetical situation. Let's say we have two groups: Group A and Group B. Both groups have different aggregate characteristics; some of these characteristics can be plotted as a curve like this one:

Don't worry about the title or the units; it's just a handy graph I found through a quick Google search that had the right shape. For our hypothetical example, let's assume that the blue line describes Group A and the red line describes Group B, and let's make the X axis... oh, say height in feet.

So, the average height for Group A is 4 feet, but most members aren't 4 feet. Most are either shorter or taller. Similarly, the average height for Group B is 6 feet, but most members of the group are either shorter or taller than this average.

Now... a question: would it be reasonable to say that any particular A is shorter than any particular B? No, it's not, and the reason why is the purple zone of the graph.

It's not reasonable to expect that the height of the member of a group is going to equal the average for their group. In fact, this assumption is false most of the time. Any individual member of the group is going to inhabit some point along the group's curve, but you can't know which point until you find out more information about that specific individual.

That purple zone is the overlap between the two curves. This is the region where individual members of Group A are taller than members of Group B, even though, on average, Group B is taller than Group A. And even though the average heights of the two groups are fairly widely separated, that purple zone is still quite large.

And this is for a hypothetical curve that doesn't mean anything. In my experience, the graphs that describe differences between groups of human beings more often look like this:

So... to sum up: even if your statistics are valid and your averages are based on real data (which is a pretty big "if" in a lot of these cases of prejudice, IMO), it's flat-out stupid to draw inferences about individual people based on the average characteristics of the groups to which they belong, because the individual is not the average of their group.

If you want to make rational, valid judgements based on the height, or intelligence, or anything else about a person, you need to know more than just what group the person belongs to. In most cases, you have to actually measure or talk to the person yourself.

So there you go - that's what I had to get out. Thanks for indulging me in my rant.

"So... to sum up: even if your statistics are valid and your averages are based on real data (which is a pretty big "if" in a lot of these cases of prejudice, IMO), it's flat-out stupid to draw inferences about individual people based on the average characteristics of the groups to which they belong, because the individual is not the average of their group."

So tell me, how do you make inferences about a group without also making inferences about the members of that group? Saying it is not about specific individuals is both true and not true. It is an inference about the probability of the observed results if a random sample is taken. It is saying, if we take a random sample this is what we are likely to get.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

"So... to sum up: even if your statistics are valid and your averages are based on real data (which is a pretty big "if" in a lot of these cases of prejudice, IMO), it's flat-out stupid to draw inferences about individual people based on the average characteristics of the groups to which they belong, because the individual is not the average of their group."

So tell me, how do you make inferences about a group without also making inferences about the members of that group? Saying it is not about specific individuals is both true and not true. It is an inference about the probability of the observed results if a random sample is taken. It is saying, if we take a random sample this is what we are likely to get.

If I thought you were here to learn and not troll, I would actually work with you.

... but I don't think you're here to learn.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

If I thought you were here to learn and not troll, I would actually work with you.

... but I don't think you're here to learn.

You are the one trolling here, Staff Member. How about you stop assuming you are the one that needs to teach me, and perhaps you might learn something.

You can't make an inference about a group without also making inferences about the members of that group. Are there outliners? Yes, but the conclusion is still about what you are likely to find with a random sample. In a normal distribution the Empirical Rule states that 99.7% of all data will fall within three standard deviations of the mean. Now of course all this is an approximation, which should be a given but considering we are here, I feel the need to repeatedly point that out.

I am not disagreeing with you on the point you can't uses averages to judge an individual person, I am just disagreeing with how you are representing statistics here. You are displaying a misunderstanding of the statistics.

 

[Revoltingest]

You are the one trolling here, Staff Member. How about you stop assuming you are the one that needs to teach me, and perhaps you might learn something.

You can't make an inference about a group without also making inferences about the members of that group. Are there outliners? Yes, but the conclusion is still about what you are likely to find with a random sample. In a normal distribution the Empirical Rule states that 99.7% of all data will fall within three standard deviations of the mean. Now of course all this is an approximation, which should be a given but considering we are here, I feel the need to repeatedly point that out.

I am not disagreeing with you on the point you can't uses averages to judge an individual person, I am just disagreeing with how you are representing statistics here. You are displaying a misunderstanding of the statistics.

I'm loath to jump into a cat fight, but....
Looking at your post #13, you began with hostility.
I urge more charity towards our inferior Canuckistanian posters.....even when they're staff.

 

[sayak83]

Lately, we've had a number of threads here on topics that suggest (to me, anyhow) discriminiation on the basis of race and gender. I think it's worth reminding everyone of a bit of relevant math. Don't worry - it's all graphs and curves; no complex equations or anything like that.

Hypothetical situation. Let's say we have two groups: Group A and Group B. Both groups have different aggregate characteristics; some of these characteristics can be plotted as a curve like this one:

Don't worry about the title or the units; it's just a handy graph I found through a quick Google search that had the right shape. For our hypothetical example, let's assume that the blue line describes Group A and the red line describes Group B, and let's make the X axis... oh, say height in feet.

So, the average height for Group A is 4 feet, but most members aren't 4 feet. Most are either shorter or taller. Similarly, the average height for Group B is 6 feet, but most members of the group are either shorter or taller than this average.

Now... a question: would it be reasonable to say that any particular A is shorter than any particular B? No, it's not, and the reason why is the purple zone of the graph.

It's not reasonable to expect that the height of the member of a group is going to equal the average for their group. In fact, this assumption is false most of the time. Any individual member of the group is going to inhabit some point along the group's curve, but you can't know which point until you find out more information about that specific individual.

That purple zone is the overlap between the two curves. This is the region where individual members of Group A are taller than members of Group B, even though, on average, Group B is taller than Group A. And even though the average heights of the two groups are fairly widely separated, that purple zone is still quite large.

And this is for a hypothetical curve that doesn't mean anything. In my experience, the graphs that describe differences between groups of human beings more often look like this:

So... to sum up: even if your statistics are valid and your averages are based on real data (which is a pretty big "if" in a lot of these cases of prejudice, IMO), it's flat-out stupid to draw inferences about individual people based on the average characteristics of the groups to which they belong, because the individual is not the average of their group.

If you want to make rational, valid judgements based on the height, or intelligence, or anything else about a person, you need to know more than just what group the person belongs to. In most cases, you have to actually measure or talk to the person yourself.

So there you go - that's what I had to get out. Thanks for indulging me in my rant.

But I would like to remind people to still act in accordance with the information one has. For example if a woman feels a sense of threat from a person or a nearby group, she must act on that prejudice.
If I see a teenager group driving in front of me, I drive with extra caution.
Instinctual reactions when it comes to personal safety should be trusted, that's what instinct is very very good at.