Bricker is a disingenous punk.

[Brandon]

@DMC

No, you don’t need other pieces of information. The claim was made that the black woman is less credible purely because what she was claiming happens more infrequently than it does to white women. That’s it. In fact, it was stated over and over again that a requirement of that claim was all else being equal. Want to try and answer it?

The black woman is not held less credible, however her story is.

There is a difference between the story and the person.

Honest Harry (who has never once said a lie in his life) tells you that he slapped an elephant.

Lying Larry (who has never once said a truth in his life) tells you that he slapped a balloon.

Who’s honesty is more credible? Honest Harry’s of course, why he’s never once lied about anything, while that fink Larry lies through his teeth persistently.

Who’s story is more credible? Lying Larry’s, because lets face it the likelihood of Harry slapping an elephant is far lower than the likelihood of Larry slapping the balloon.

The only time the black woman or the white woman’s credibility in relation to honesty is called into question is after determining that one of them lied without a doubt, which is not possible to claim in our scenario. Seems part of the problem is some seem to insist that is what I am trying to claim.

[magellan01]

@DMC

No, we determine credibility of plausible events by the likelihood of someone lying about said event, not the likelihood of it happening.

Let’s try this.

My friend Bob has a pet cat.
My friend Bob has a pet bald eagle.

Do you really think that those two claims are equally credible? The same person makes both claims, so the credibility of the one claimant is identical to the credibility of the other claimant. The only difference is the likelihood of each claim being true. If you had to choose, are you telling me that you couldn’t? That you would just have to flip a coin?

@DMC

Second, if you tell me what percentage of people lie about going to Paris, versus what percentage lie about going to the moon, I’ll happily give you an answer. Claiming to be an astronaut and claiming to have been to Paris are both things I’d guess that a significant number of people lie about , so without knowing which has a greater frequency of lies, I couldn’t tell you.

But the rules of the game are that you do not know these things. You also do not know how likely it is that either of these people will lie. If we knew it, we wold judge by that, but we don’t.

@DMC

In fact, those of you who claim that we can assign credibility based on rarity should be able to give an actual numerical answer.

Sorry, this is bullshit. Especially when you do not provide numbers to base it on. And if you’re argument is correct it will be correct regardless of the numbers. The question simply goes to which claim is more credible. If each person is equally credible, but circumstances indicate that one claim is more likely than the other, then that claim is more credible, i.e., more likely to be true.

@DMC

What the fuck?So you’re saying that black woman lie about being raped by white men more often than white women lie about being raped by white men? You want to stick with that answer?Which has no bearing on credibility.No you can’t, unless you can show that black women lie about being raped at a higher percentage than white women.

Huh? I’m saying in the real world the incidence of rape has a certain order. A white woman beiing raped by a white male is a more common occurrence than a black woman being raped by a white male, or a man being raped by a man, or a man being raped by a woman, or a white woman being raped by an albino midget. So, with no other information, and no reason to doubt the credibility of any of these people, if thay all claim rape, there claims are not equally credible. From most credible claim to least credible they rank:

white woman being raped by white guy
white woman being raped by white guy
man being raped by man
man being raped by woman
woman being raped by albino midget

How can you denty that? Seriously.

[psychloan]

@DMC

No, you don’t need other pieces of information. The claim was made that the black woman is less credible purely because what she was claiming happens more infrequently than it does to white women. That’s it. In fact, it was stated over and over again that a requirement of that claim was all else being equal. Want to try and answer it?

“all things being equal” lets me assume a roughly equal number of blacks and whites; and a roughly equal rate for making false reports.

Yes, I also assumed a non-trivial number of false reports. Without that assumption, you obviously can’t do the math. It’s so obvious that it hardly needs to be stated - sometimes people lie or are mistaken.

So what?

How are any of my assumptions unreasonable?

I’m happy to re-do the calculation assuming that 2%, 5%, or even 40% of rape claims are fabricated.

Any way you do it, the probability that the black woman’s accusation is false is higher. With two exceptions:

If 0% of rape accusations are true, or 100% are true, then the probabilities are the same.

[DMC]

@Brandon

There is a difference between the story and the person.

I think that your posts are full of disingenous bullshit, but you are an honest person and the poster-child of integrity.

Honest Harry (who has never once said a lie in his life) tells you that he slapped an elephant.

Lying Larry (who has never once said a truth in his life) tells you that he slapped a balloon.

Who’s honesty is more credible? Honest Harry’s of course, why he’s never once lied about anything, while that fink Larry lies through his teeth persistently.

Who’s story is more credible? Lying Larry’s, because lets face it the likelihood of Harry slapping an elephant is far lower than the likelihood of Larry slapping the balloon.

The likelihood of someone experiencing a situation makes no difference, if both are plausible. The likelihood of someone lying about said situation does make a difference. If people lie about slapping balloons at a greater ratio than they lie about slapping elephants, then Harry is the more credible. If we don’t know the ratio of false claims for either plausible scenario, all else being equal, both (that’s people AND claims) are equally credible.

The only time the black woman or the white woman’s credibility in relation to honesty is called into question is after determining that one of them lied without a doubt, which is not possible to claim in our scenario. Seems part of the problem is some seem to insist that is what I am trying to claim.

In the scenario that this thread references, there was no such determination. Once again, the entire premise that we’re disagreeing with is whether the fact that white on black rape is somewhat less frequent than white on white rape has any effect on the credibility of the black person claiming it happened. The answer is “No”.

[DMC]

@psychloan

I’m happy to re-do the calculation assuming that 2%, 5%, or even 40% of rape claims are fabricated.

We’ll make it easy on you. Let’s say for this that 25% of all rape claims are false.

[DMC]

@magellan01

Let’s try this.

My friend Bob has a pet cat.
My friend Bob has a pet bald eagle.

Do you really think that those two claims are equally credible? The same person makes both claims, so the credibility of the one claimant is identical to the credibility of the other claimant. The only difference is the likelihood of each claim being true. If you had to choose, are you telling me that you couldn’t? That you would just have to flip a coin?

Are you sure you can’t come up with something even more stupid? If you could just try two or three more times, maybe throwing in something like “a pet bald eagle with fangs and corn kerneled turds”, I’d be a convert, but I’m not quite there yet.

But the rules of the game are that you do not know these things. You also do not know how likely it is that either of these people will lie. If we knew it, we wold judge by that, but we don’t.

Therefore, since a white person raping a black person and a white person raping a white person are both not only perfectly plausible, but happen all of the time, they are equally credible.

Sorry, this is bullshit. Especially when you do not provide numbers to base it on. And if you’re argument is correct it will be correct regardless of the numbers. The question simply goes to which claim is more credible. If each person is equally credible, but circumstances indicate that one claim is more likely than the other, then that claim is more credible, i.e., more likely to be true.

Then answer with how much more credible if you wish. Is the white person twice as credible, 20 times as credible, 99 times as credible?

Huh? I’m saying in the real world the incidence of rape has a certain order. A white woman beiing raped by a white male is a more common occurrence than a black woman being raped by a white male, or a man being raped by a man, or a man being raped by a woman, or a white woman being raped by an albino midget. So, with no other information, and no reason to doubt the credibility of any of these people, if thay all claim rape, there claims are not equally credible. From most credible claim to least credible they rank:

white woman being raped by white guy
white woman being raped by white guy
man being raped by man
man being raped by woman
woman being raped by albino midget

How can you denty that? Seriously.

Because it’s stupid. Once again, frequency of occurrence does not require a correlation with frequency of lying about said occurrence. My Woodstock/Wichita line demonstrated this quite well. By the same token, shitloads of people are or have been Rangers or SEALS, but those are some of the most widely falsified claims out there. A person making such a claim doesn’t lose credibility because it’s a rare occurrence (it’s not), but because it’s a frequently lied about occurrence.

[psychloan]

@DMC

We’ll make it easy on you. Let’s say for this that 25% of all rape claims are false.

Fine. Let X = the total number of rapes per year. Then the number of false accusations is X/3. Thus, the number of false accusations made by white women is X/6 and the number made by black women is also X/6.

The total number of black on white rapes is .99X by your assumption. The total number of white on black rapes is .01X, again by your assumption.

Thus, the percentage of accusations by black women that is false is

(X / 6) / (X/6 + .01X) = (1/6) / (1/6 + 1/100) = (1/6) / (106 /600) = 100/106 = 94%.

For white women, the percentage is

(X/6) / (X/6 + .99X) = (1/6) / (1/6 + 99/100) = (1/6) / (694/600) = 100/694 = 14%.

So, all things being equal, if we assume that

(1) 99% of rapes are black on white and 1% of rapes are white on black;

(2) black and white women are roughly equally likely to fabricate a rape claim;

(3) all other things are equal, then

If a black woman makes a rape accusation, there is a 94% chance the claim is false, and if a white woman makes a rape accusation, there is a 14% chance that her claim is false.

Background statistics matter.

Again, what is fascinating about this example is that it assumes that black and white women are roughly equally likely to fabricate a rape claim.

Even so, the probability that any given black woman’s claim is false is much much higher.

[you_with_the_face]

@Brandon

The black woman is not held less credible, however her story is.

A story does not exist without a story-teller.

A claim does not exist without a claimant.

A lie does not exist without a liar.

To declare that a claimant is credible but not her claim is purely 100% illogical. It’s like declaring that a person is not a liar, but then saying that they are lying.

Honest Harry (who has never once said a lie in his life) tells you that he slapped an elephant.

Lying Larry (who has never once said a truth in his life) tells you that he slapped a balloon.

Who’s honesty is more credible? Honest Harry’s of course, why he’s never once lied about anything, while that fink Larry lies through his teeth persistently.

Okay.

Who’s story is more credible? Lying Larry’s, because lets face it the likelihood of Harry slapping an elephant is far lower than the likelihood of Larry slapping the balloon.

Damn. I thought you were going to surprise me and say that you’d believe Harry’s story more, seeing how he’s never ever ever told a lie, while Larry is a pathological liar.

The only time the black woman or the white woman’s credibility in relation to honesty is called into question is after determining that one of them lied without a doubt, which is not possible to claim in our scenario. Seems part of the problem is some seem to insist that is what I am trying to claim.

Your thinking is backward. Before you establish the credibility of the claim, you must establish the credibility of the complainant. Otherwise you end up biasing yourself against the person that the complainant is accusing or the person who is making the claim, if you’re talking about something like rape.

This is an extremely important point so I’m going to reiterate it.

Before you establish the credibility of a specific claim, you must establish the credibiltiy of the complainant. Otherwise, you end up biasing yourself against the person that the complainant is accusing OR the person who is making the claim.

Why is this bad? Because if you are called to judge a case as a juror, and you already have preconceived beliefs about the veracity of the alleged event but with no evidence at all, then whomever your beliefs lean towards will start off the trial with an unfair advantage. This is why I was so adamant in the trainwreck threads. I really believe a lot of the problems we have with the justice system stem from jurors already having their minds made up because of what’s “common”, instead of what’s proven.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@psychloan

Fine. Let X = the total number of rapes per year. Then the number of false accusations is X/3. Thus, the number of false accusations made by white women is X/6 and the number made by black women is also X/6. […]

If a black woman makes a rape accusation, there is a 94% chance the claim is false, and if a white woman makes a rape accusation, there is a 14% chance that her claim is false.

:eek: What the fuck are you on about? If black women and white women lie about rape at an equal rate, then when presented with a black woman and a white woman claiming rape, aren’t they by definition equally credible?

Otherwise, why are you building a higher rate of lying into your equation for the black woman?

Background statistics matter.

A background in statistics matters.

Again, what is fascinating about this example is that it assumes that black and white women are roughly equally likely to fabricate a rape claim.

What is fascinating is that you assumed that a black woman would lie more. You really have no idea what you are talking about.

Even so, the probability that any given black woman’s claim is false is much much higher.

Yikes, this is really thick thinking. Let’s take your thinking and substitute a penny and a nickel. They are equally likely to come up heads on a coin toss right? Now, I flip the penny 100 times and I flip the nickel 5 times. Wow! I got heads a lot more from the penny. Therefore, the probability of a penny coming up heads is much higher than a nickel!

[you_with_the_face]

@psychloan

Even so, the probability that any given black woman’s claim is false is much much higher.

But straight out of the gate, you’re making an unwarranted assumption.

You assume that blacks would make as many false accusations as a white woman would.

If black women make accusations in proportion to the rate that they are raped, then you would not expect 94% false accusation rate. That should be blantantly obvious if you start out with the given that whites and blacks are no different when it comes to lying about rape. No math is necessary to understand this.

If 25% of rape accusations are false, and you assume that both races are equally honest, then the probability that one is lying is not different than the other. It makes no sense to divide this percent in half and assume that each group contribute to the pool of false accusations equally. None whatsoever.

The only way you could reach your conclusion is if you assume that white men are raping black and white women indiscriminately and at random. But we already know that is not the case. So that assumption is garbage.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@magellan01

Huh? I’m saying in the real world the incidence of rape has a certain order. A white woman beiing raped by a white male is a more common occurrence than a black woman being raped by a white male, or a man being raped by a man, or a man being raped by a woman, or a white woman being raped by an albino midget. So, with no other information, and no reason to doubt the credibility of any of these people, if thay all claim rape, there claims are not equally credible. From most credible claim to least credible they rank:

white woman being raped by white guy
white woman being raped by white guy
man being raped by man
man being raped by woman
woman being raped by albino midget

How can you denty that? Seriously.

Again, the general population is different than the population of people making a claim. You start out talking about the prevalence rates of rape, and then you segue right into the prevalence rates of lying about rape. The first you know, the second you don’t know.

Take heart disease for example. It is said to occur more frequently in African Americans than in Caucasians, right? So, let’s say an African American man and a Caucasian man both tell you “I have heart disease.” Are you saying that you turn to the Caucasian and say, “Whitey, you are a liar!” Nonsense. You have no basis upon which to judge the relative credibility of the reports of a given Caucasian man and a given African American man.

[psychloan]

@Hentor the Barbarian

:eek: What the fuck are you on about? If black women and white women lie about rape at an equal rate, then when presented with a black woman and a white woman claiming rape, aren’t they by definition equally credible?**

No. I’ll say it again: Under the assumptions above, if black women fabricate rape claims at the same rate as white women, then a black woman’s claim is far less credible than that of the white woman.

Show me where my math is wrong.

Otherwise, why are you building a higher rate of lying into your equation for the black woman?

I’m not. I’m assuming that the population of black and white women is the same and that they make roughly the same number of false rape accusations.

Show me where my math is wrong.

A background in statistics matters.

Yes, and it’s something that you seem to lack.

What is fascinating is that you assumed that a black woman would lie more.

I made no such assumption.

Show me where my math is wrong.

You really have no idea what you are talking about.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Background statistics matter.

Show me where my math is wrong.

[you_with_the_face]

@psychloan

I’m not. I’m assuming that the population of black and white women is the same and that they make roughly the same number of false rape accusations.

Show me where my math is wrong.

It’s not your math that is making our eyes bulge with amazement.

It’s your ridiculous assumptions and your even more ridiculous conclusion.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@psychloan

Show me where my math is wrong.

Well, for starters, right here:

@psychloan

Fine. Let X = the total number of rapes per year. Then the number of false accusations is X/3. Thus, the number of false accusations made by white women is X/6 and the number made by black women is also X/6.

This is true only if the number of rapes of white and black women is equal, dipshit. If it is not, then the number of total rapes is X, the number of false accusations made by white women is Y/6 and the number of false accusations made by black women is Z/6 (where X=Y+Z, Y is the number of claims of rape by white women and Z is the number of claims of rape by black women, and where black and white women lie 1/6 of the time).

But you would only need to check your logic, not your math. If you start out saying that the probability of a black woman lying is 1 out of 6 and the probability of a white woman lying is 1 out of 6, and you end up saying that the probability of a black woman lying is 94 out of 100 and the probability of a white woman lying is 14 out of 100, you have to be able to figure out that you’ve made a mistake somewhere in the middle.

Yes, and it’s something that you seem to lack.

I’ve authored or co-authored about 9 papers using data analyses and served as a peer reviewer of about 20. I’m not a statistician per say, but I’m fairly familiar with stats.

[psychloan]

@you with the face

But straight out of the gate, you’re making an unwarranted assumption.

You assume that blacks would make as many false accusations as a white woman would.**

Yes. I’m assuming that “all other things are equal.” i.e. that an unraped black woman is approximately as likely to make a false rape claim as an unraped white woman.

I haven’t noticed anything indicating that whites are more likely to fabricate charges than blacks or vice versa. Nor I have I seen any studies to suggest it.

Frankly, it seems like a reasonable assumption, and in any event, the math problem I was given invited me to assume that “all other things are equal.”

I think that anyone who claims that black women are less likely to make up false rape accusations than white women should bear the burden of producing evidence to that effect. My opinion only.

[psychloan]

@Hentor the Barbarian

But you would only need to check your logic, not your math. If you start out saying that the probability of a black woman lying is 1 out of 6 and the probability of a white woman lying is 1 out of 6, and you end up saying that the probability of a black woman lying is 94 out of 100 and the probability of a white woman lying is 14 out of 100, you have to be able to figure out that you’ve made a mistake somewhere in the middle.
I’ve authored or co-authored about 9 papers using data analyses and served as a peer reviewer of about 20. I’m not a statistician per say, but I’m fairly familiar with stats.

Apparently none of the papers you read helped you to understand the difference between prior probabilities and posterior probabilities.

Do you know what the difference is?

[you_with_the_face]

And I’d like to interrupt the proceedings to express appreciation for a few posts in this thread:

@monstro

If I tell you’ve I’ve been raped by a man, what does it matter that I’m 4 times more likely to be struck by a lime-green car full of dollar bills? Or that a woman five years younger than me is more likely to be raped by a man wearing a pink tutu? Or that a fat woman with camel-toe is more likely to be raped while eating a McRib sandwich? I mean…these other events have no bearing on the likelihood of MY claim. Bringing them up doesn’t make sense…

@DMC

Are you sure you can’t come up with something even more stupid? If you could just try two or three more times, maybe throwing in something like “a pet bald eagle with fangs and corn kerneled turds”, I’d be a convert, but I’m not quite there yet.

@holmes

Yeah, but what about the Zombie Ghost of Abe Lincoln, huh? Do you have an answer for that?

Didn’t think so.

These statistic threads would be boring as hell if we didn’t take comedic license every once in a while. So thanks, guys. I could read this kind of shit 100 times a day and laugh each time. Not just any ghost, but a ZOMBIE ghost! slapping knee

And the parallel discussion about dragons added a surreal touch, too.

[Scylla]

Just to be purely pedantic we can probably actually answer the question as to which person’s accusation is more credible based solely on the data that one accusation is by a white woman accusing a white man, and, the other is by a black woman accusing a white man.

The answer probably isn’t to be found in who is most likely to rape, but in who is most likely to give a false accusation of rape.

I would guess that there would be 3 primary motives for a false accusation of rape:

1. Revenge/grudge. In the event of a divorce the accusation may have revenge and/or financial value. It may be a weapon in this regard, or it may simply be revenge.

2. Regret after a sexual encounter. If one feels guilty or used after consensual sex it may help one’s own psyche or explanation to friends and family to suggest that it was not consensual.

3. Delusion/mental illness

Please note that I am not talking about cases of actual rape, but cases of false accusations.

I would guess that the first two possibilities would make up for the vast preponderance of false accusations. The nature of these accusations implies the accusation is being made against a spouse/significant other.

In this country, it seems that relatively very few relationships percentagewise are interracial ones.

Given these guesses, I can make a conclusion. A white woman accusing a white man is more likely to be accusing a spouse/significant other than a black woman accusing a white man. Since the preponderance of false accusations fall into this category, she would statistically be more likely to be making a false accusation.

Therefore, the black woman accusing a white man would seem to be more credible an accusation since it is less likely to involve the predominant category of false accusations.

---

I have no idea whether or not this holds true or if my guesses are accurate ones (though I think they are good guesses.)

The point that I’m making though is valid. Though the issue of race itself is moot to the validity of an accusation, it is a datapoint that differentiates the two accusations. As such, it is likely connected statistically to other datapoints which will affect the statistical likelihood of a false accusation.
(Please consider all appropriate disclaimers inserted)

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@psychloan

Apparently none of the papers you read helped you to understand the difference between prior probabilities and posterior probabilities.

No, because those are not elements of the statistical analysis of study data, they are elements of Bayesian theoretical statistics, if I recall correctly.

Do you know what the difference is?

Posterior probability is the probability adjusted after taking new information into account in your theory. Pray tell, what new information did you think you worked into your musings above?

Are you going to walk away from your abominable proof above without acknowledging your basic fuck-ups?

How about the penny and nickel - do you think the probability of coming up with heads is greater for a penny than a nickel?

[you_with_the_face]

@psychloan

Yes. I’m assuming that “all other things are equal.” i.e. that an unraped black woman is approximately as likely to make a false rape claim as an unraped white woman.

And yet this is your conclusion.

Even so, the probability that any given black woman’s claim is false is much much higher.

I think thinks counts as bona fide proof that you are idiot, in addition to your flippant remarks about Hentor’s expertise in this area. Sorry that I have to go there. I’ve been pretty civil and cordial for the greater part of this thread, but frankly, this is the Pit, and it’s time to keep it real.

If your assumption is that black women are just as likely to lie as white women, then how in the hell do you account for the conclusion that they will be more likely to make false claims? This conclusion is so outrageously illogical, so fucking insane, that your fingers should hurt just typing it out.

It’s a good thing I’m not an android because this is the kind of thing that causes androids to start killing people like HAL-9000.