Clearly, Bricker finally realized what a huge ignorant ass he’s made of himself, and is too embarassed to come back. Perhaps he is also ashamed of himself for trying to hide his running away under an ‘oh, this is off topic, so close it’ post – perhaps he realized that HE was the one who brought it off topic with his little hypothetical game in the first place, making this lie completely untenable.
I hope at least now he has a better understanding of the nature of statistics, and how they can and can’t be used.
Despite all the vitriol and name-calling and utter hatred expressed in both of these threads, I hope everyone has learned something about when and how stats can be applied. The fact that Bricker, a well-educated, morally-conscious person with direct involvement in the legal sphere, can have flaws in his deductive reasoning indicates to me that ALL of us (including myself) need to be more careful with their judgements and how we treat data.
I don’t say this in an attempt to make Bricker feel better, because frankly I still think the guy has a lot to be ashamed about in regards to his recent behavior. I just hope he can come back here, think about what was said, and at least consider the high likelihood that he is wrong.
Stats have no relevance to an individual case. That’s all this is about. Real simple. Stupid, even.
This applies even when the stats are about race.
Real simple. Stupid, even.
That you can’t comprehend this indicates…
This seems indisputable to me, unless I’m forgetting all my college stats. It reminds me of tests for certain diseases. The tests ultimately demonstrate that a certain percentage of the population has the disease. But there are also false positives that the test produces. If we can expect that 8 people in 1,000 will have the disease, but that 2% of the population will receive a false positive, then we have a basis for evaluating a positive reading. In fact, there are scenarios–like the one above–where a positive reading is more likely to be a false positive (so every positive gets re-tested). Eventually the tests are repeated until scientists are satisfied that x people in 1,000 are afflicted.
In this scenario, a false rape accusation is the equivalent of a false positive. If we know from the past that x% of rapes are white on black, but we know nothing about the % of false accusations, we do NOT have sufficient data to determine how likely it might be that the accuser is lying. We just don’t. This doesn’t change whether 2% of rapes are white on black or 98% are white on black. That statistic, by itself, doesn’t speak to the credibility of an accusation.
Sorry if that has been said in this form earlier. Have not read through the whole thread.
It is indisputable, of course. Part of this mess has been that Bricker and others think their “common sense” approach to stats can argue with the actual science and how it is used. A couple pages back, he told me he “disagreed” with a flat-out fact, and since then I’ve realized he and the rest must be thinking we’re all arguing about opinions, instead of stating facts about a science.
But Bricker is probably not reading this anymore, and it’s really sad to me that he’s chosen to cover his ears and eyes and wallow in his ignorance rather than have to admit he was wrong.
If I said it was a Great Dane I’m slightly less credible than if I can’t identify the breed I saw?
I question the notion that city folk don’t own large dogs, the larger population of a city increases the chance that I might find a dog owner, more dog owners, more chances to see an unusual breed.
If I walk a mile in the country I’m less likely to see any dogs at all just because of population density.
Pugs
lots of small dogs, but lots of bigs ones too.
“reduced more if you claim it was a horse”
Horses in NYC;
According to “The City Of New York City .Com” 4 stables in the city itself and 6 in the outer boroughs.
What does the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation have to say?
“…There are three bridle paths in Central Park - the Reservoir Loop (1.65 miles), the North Meadow Loop (1.1 miles), and the Southern Spur (1.5 miles). No permit is required to horseback ride…”
“…The Bridle path in Pelham Bay Park provides beautiful vistas of marshland and woods…”
“…Forest Park’s four-mile equestrian path meanders through 165 acres of oak forest…”
“…Staten Island offers a wide variety of riding terrain in New York City, from beaches to parks and city streets to wooded trails…”
“…4 outdoor riding rings, an Olympic-sized indoor arena, and easy access to the miles of trails in Van Cortlandt Park…”
“…Prospect Park’s 3.5 mile-long bridle path winds through scenic woodlands, meadows, and a ravine…”
and there’s the NYPD Mounted Unit, and Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly is increasing the budget for the mounted troop, 75 horses and officers over the next three years, to eventually bring the total to 160, giving mounted patrols a larger role in battling crime.
Add horse drawn carriages and NYC has a sizable number of horses, as many horses as dogs? No, but enough that a claim that you saw one would only be doubted by an idiot.
“further diminished if you say it was a gorilla, near-zero if you claim it was a white rhino, and zero if if say it was a unicorn”
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
Well this would depend on where and what you said you saw.
Big exotics? Incredulity or “Oh shit, Ringling Bros. is at the Garden?, I got to get tickets, or the kids’ll kill me”.
Smaller exotics, and random wild animals?
“…an estimated 1.5 million exotic pets in New York City…”
“…Two marmosets, two capuchins, two squirrel monkeys and the spider were confiscated from the home of Orlando Lopez…Lopez was allowed to keep his Great Dane…Last October, animal control officers arrested a man for keeping a tiger and an alligator in his New York City apartment. Later that month, officers arrested another apartment resident for keeping 12 exotic snakes…” Coyotes, a recent siting.
Unicorns? “Dude your damn lucky that mounted cop didn’t arrest you for public intoxication!”, of course there are real unicorns!
Why is this so foreign to some of you?
CMC fnord!
Their is an inverse relationship between the time it takes to construct a post and the degree to which it contributes to a discussion. (Hentor the Barbarian’sRule of Posting Composition)
Because unicorns don’t exist and the woman in North Carolina does as do black women. And I’ve seen a runaway horse raising against traffic down a major city street jump through the top of a passing convertible. What were the perceived odds of that happening the day before? When it happened, it 100% happened.
If you have a random number generator for sixteen numbers, the odds of it generating sixteen specific numbers that you have chosen are a gazillion to one. (Okay, I don’t do odds.) But once those sixteen numbers are generated and the event has already happened, the odds don’t matter a damned bit. That particular series is there. That particular series of sixteen numbers beat the odds even though they are not the ones you picked. Your belief has nothing to do with it. The odds against it happening had no influence on it.
If you look at any past event, you can declare it rare by fixating on any number of meaningless features. Like names, race, bra cup size, or shoe size.
Zoe analogy about the random number generator is apt in illustrating this particular error. The generator will spit out a string of numbers and it would be easy to say incredlously “What are the odds that the generator would pick these particular integers, as opposed to the many other numbers it could have?”
And when you sit down and do the math, it would seem amazing. The probability of picking a 7, 14, 9, 38, 24, … AND a 33 is extremely small. What are the odds of this happening? It’s unbelievable! Except that its not, because you know that the generator will pick some numbers and it just happened to be those.
It’s the same type of mistake that creationists make. “What are the odds that the sun and the moon and planets would be aligned just in the right way to allow life here on Earth? It’s uncanny, I tells you!” It is amazing, but not because of statistical odds or probability.
When it comes to real life events, this mistake is easy to make when the irrelevancy of features is less obvious. Such as race. “What are the odds that a white man will rape a black woman? Pretty damn small, I tells you! Therefore, this probably didn’t happen!”
Which speaks to Bricker’s roulette hypthetica. If a guy says he just picked two correct numbers at roulette, would you believe him? Why not? Suppose he says he jsut cranked up his random number generator and it spit out the number 5,876,487. Would you believe him? What are the odds of that number being generated? Very slim indeed. But unless you have some reason to think the guy is a liar there is no reason to doubt that a rare event occured to him.
Yes, exactly. This is not that hard. If I tell you I just flipped a coin four times, and it came out heads four in a row, would that seem unlikely? Well, it is. But not any more unlikely than any other four-flip combination.
The counter argument suggests that anything that is less than 50% likely, if someone says it occured, should be considered questionable. Hmm, you say your BMW was in an accident. That seems unlikely. Most car accidents do NOT involve BMWs. You say your accountant embezzled your money? Please! Your accountant is of Inuit descent, his birthday is February 29, and he is 6’10". I can’t find a single instance of such a person embezzling money. Balderdash!
It follows that if a person is 90% full of shit, that ain’t likely going to be changing in the near future. A person’s posts simply reflect the amount of shit inside of him.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out, either. But I felt it needed to be explained.