# The New Haven Firefighter Case **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 31, 2009, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268 "2009-05-31T16:52:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/141 "2009-06-03T18:21:47Z")
I have a question: Since we have not seen the test, do we know that it ISN’T racially biased? My understanding is simply that the disparity in the test results was what prompted the action to throw out the test. This IS some evidence that the test may be culturally biased, albeit not conclusive. Was there any evidence to show in this case that there was a correlation between test performance and job results? Isn’t that really where the rubber meets the road: IF the tests were not a particlarly good indicator of job perfomrance and IF the test revealed a disparity based on race then that should be enough. However the first half is hard to show, I would think, because by its very nature the test selected only top scorers to move on and a true hypothesis test would have some lower scores allowed to move on. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/142 "2009-06-03T18:26:17Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > I have a question: Since we have not seen the test, do we know that it ISN’T racially biased? My understanding is simply that the disparity in the test results was what prompted the action to throw out the test. This IS some evidence that the test may be culturally biased, albeit not conclusive. > **[Sotomayor on tape: What she said in firefighter race case](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/0603/sotomayor-on-tape-what-she-said-in-firefighter-race-case)** > > She asked probing questions of each side in the reverse-discrimination suit. But the circuit court's 135-word summary order rubbed some the wrong way. > [@](#): > > New Haven went to extraordinary lengths to create a fair exam for this particular promotion, Torre said. The city hired a consultant to specifically design the test to help minority candidates qualify for promotions, she said. The reading level was reduced to a fifth-grade literacy rate, and candidates were given a study guide and a three-month study period. The city recruited black and Hispanic fire chiefs from across the country to serve as test assessors. Assessment panels included a majority of African-American or Hispanic assessors, Torre said. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/143 "2009-06-03T18:30:22Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > And that’s the point, isn’t it? > > MCAT may have some predictive value on later tests, when you look at large groups of people. But if you have two docs, both of whom passed their boards, then what does it matter what their MCAT scores were? Obviously both docs were smart enough to 1) successfully get through med school and 2) pass their board exam. > > Let’s suppose we find out that Dr. Smith had a craptastic MCAT score and was only able to get into med school because he came from a prestigious undergrad, had a high undergrad GPA, and/or is Native American. All that tells me is that in his case, the MCAT was not a reliable predictor of his ability to become a doctor, since he was able to successfully master the training and pass the USMLE. If the MCAT score is the end all-be all, then the guy should have flunked out the first or second year. > > Again, I ask the incredulous: why don’t employers bother with asking applicants for SAT, GRE, or MCAT scores, if they have so much meaningful predictive value? You have a valid general point–standardized pre-training and licensure exam scores are not a perfect predictor of clinical ability. I don’t disagree with that. In my experience, which is broad but not perfect or absolute, there is a reasonable correlation between high scores and choice of clinical specialties requiring the ability to grasp very detailed and extensive bodies of material. In simple terms one might say that the “smartest” candidates (the ones with the best academic track records) get into the most demanding subspecialties, publish the best research, and lead their fields. Everyone else is distributed across some spectrum all the way down to the guy who barely made it out of med school, barely passed the USMLE, and ended up in a strip mall clinic in a seedy neighborhood with no hospital privileges anywhere. While it’s true the last person in the med school class is still called “Doctor” it’s not true that his qualifications and excellence are equivalent to the top person. Since many skillsets are needed to be a good clinician, it is of course true that many wonderful doctors have “craptastic” test scores. The medical profession is such that, if these really good docs are aware of their limitations, they can refer out the difficult problems and manage the less complicated ones themselves–perhaps even better than someone with a good skillset for scores and a lousy skillset for actually relating to patients. In the medical world, since everyone has the choice to practice independently if they so choose, the closest thing we have to employers are Medical Groups and Hospitals. These often do look at scores–typically the most recent ones, such as USMLE or Board exams–along with the usual other criteria such as recommendations from training programs. Those recommendations will frequently reference prior test scores if they are relevant or outstanding. As a rule of thumb, though, it’s true that an actual Board Certification (this is the exam at the end of specialty training, and several years beyond the basic USMLE) is considered sufficiently difficult to attain that the actual Board score is not usually addressed unless the candidate presents it–and of course that’s only done if it happens to be more on the stellar side. As to whether or not scores are very predictive of actual ability, it’s kind of difficult to prove because medicine is not easily quantifiable (there are lots of efforts to make it more so). It’s a common impression among me and my colleagues that the lay public has no clue who is a good doctor and who is not…and in many ways the professional-side opinion of that remains within fairly closed ranks. To give a non-medical analogy though, let me use flying. I fly a lot. I want someone with experience and someone who is highly regarded by his fellow pilots as being superb. My expectation is that all pilots have met a minimum certification exam, but given my druthers I want someone who is highly regarded by colleagues and who aced the exam, even though (so far) all the pilots I’ve had got me to my destination. And I bet the most highly regarded pilots have a long track record of excellence and are not typically the ones who just barely made it through to certification. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/144 "2009-06-03T18:39:09Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > [Sotomayor on tape: What she said in firefighter race case - CSMonitor.com](http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/06/03/sotomayor-on-tape-what-she-said-in-firefighter-race-case/) Yeah I read that, of course Torre is the firefighter’s lawyer, so who knows. It isn’t necessarily proof that the test wasn’t biased, although that isn’t what the court decided anyway. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/145 "2009-06-03T22:28:25Z")
No one has answered my question from yesterday. I guess y’all are too interested in debating whether “blacks” are genetically inferior doctors or not. :rolleyes: Again I ask: what should the City have done instead, given that accepting the test’s results would most certainly have subjected them to a valid Title VII lawsuit? ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/146 "2009-06-03T22:29:26Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > You’re being evasive here. No one is judging by the MCAT, I am wondering if it’s not indicative of a larger trend of lowering standards to meet quotas from entrance to med school on to hiring at hospitals. > > I’m not going to answer your question because it’s utterly irrelevant. You aren’t going to answer it because it totally rips the heart out of your thesis. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/147 "2009-06-04T00:57:44Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > No one has answered my question from yesterday. I guess y’all are too interested in debating whether “blacks” are genetically inferior doctors or not. :rolleyes: > > Again I ask: what should the City have done instead, given that accepting the test’s results would most certainly have subjected them to a valid Title VII lawsuit? The city might get sued accepting the results. They did get sued not accepting them. They should have done the right thing: stand by their best efforts to create an equal opportunity. Let the test stand unless there was some sort of absolute evidence it was biased toward a particular group. And that evidence can not simply be the statistical analysis of the outcome; it needs to be why a particular question or process creates a bias. I got the whole 4/5ths thing, btw. I understand what some people think the law must say. I’ll sit back and let others with more time than I–SCOTUS players, perhaps, explain why that’s either not OK or not the case. What the city should have done is easy: Create a fair process. Absent evidence the process was unfair, stick to the results. I’d be perfectly OK, btw, with the City sitting down and saying to the firefighters in advance, “Look guys; we got 37% blacks in our population base. We are going to come up with some sort of process that gets something close to that for our firefighter leadership.” That’s not what they did. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/148 "2009-06-04T03:31:25Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Do you have cites to show this “coddling” programs exclude males? It’s easy to make that assumption, but it’s far from a given. It doesn’t matter. Firstly, the programs are designed to help women and blacks in preference to males. That is the stated aim. The people who organise them and the people who participate in them believe they will help blacks and women more than they will help men or whites. Whether they are also available to white men is irrelevant, because they are deliberately designed to preferentially favour blacks and women. And deliberately, preferentially favouring a group is a close to coddling as makes no difference in this thread. Secondly the question was whether it was plausible that minorities were coddled throughout their training. I’ve provided evidence that it is not just plausible, but actually occurs. > [@](#): > > This sounds like an isolated incident, not a systematic, institutionalized process. I have no idea how common it is. Neither do you. I do know that mentors having RAs correct assignments prior to submission is not isolated. > [@](#): > > I can just as easy fire off an anecdote or two about some rich white kid who got some underserved extra credit at one point in time because he whined enough, but that doesn’t mean that schools have policies in place that “coddle” white students. Given that the court’s finding and this whole thread hinges on the fact that they do, either intentionally or unintentionally, that is an incredibly odd claim to make. If schools don’t have policies in place that make it substantially easier for white kids than black kids then we have to conclude that black kids fail in school cause they’re dumb. After all the testing is standardised and the school doesn’t have any policies that make it easier for white kids. > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > You’ve simply singled out one that focuses on minorities. Surely you’re not under the impression that white students aren’t given access to practicing physicians while black students are, because that is borderline crazy. How is it crazy to believe that what the site says the program does is true? The “program will enable [black] residents and students to interact with practicing physicians to gain knowledge about the field of medicine”. It’s right there in black and white: black students have access to practicing physicians that white students do not have. That may be borderline crazy, but at leats it’s not borderline illiterate, as your position is. > [@](#): > > Tutoring and mentoring are red herrings anyway because you’ve failed to show how these programs mean black students are evaluated differently than white students in the classroom, by institutions. > [@](#): > > Tutoring… is no more coddling than is having a professor invite his students to get extra help during office hours. At end-game, the students are still held to the same standards. WTF? If women aren’t expected to perform as well if the study on their own as males are when they study on their own, that is a lower standard. If women are expected to only be able to equal males with more tutoring than the males get, that is a lower standard and that is coddling. If women are expected to only perform as well as men if a program is in place to place them with mentor to assist with their study program, that is a lower standard and that is coddling. If blacks are only expected to equal white performance if they have special programs to give them access to practicing physicians, that is a lower standard and that is coddling. This is getting ridiculous. These organisations all state quite clearly that in an attempt to allow minorities to equal the academic performance of white males they are provided with special assistance. That is the very definition of having a lowered standards. I can compete with Lance Armstrong, but only if I am provided with special assistance. Are you seriously arguing that this isn’t setting a lower standard for myself than for Armstrong? Bloody hell **mswas** , I bet you never thought we’d be on the same side in a race debate. ---
**Author:** ![Fantome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Fantome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fantome)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/149 "2009-06-04T04:06:43Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Who would you most trust to know what they’re doing in the operating room? The board-certified surgeon who had the lowest MCAT score in their class? Or the 1st year medical student who had the highest. Apples and oranges. One has graduated medical school and the other hasn’t. The fair question is, “Given no other information, who would you most trust to know what they’re doing in the operating room? The board-certified surgeon who had to have a higher MCAT score because he’s white or be able to pass with a lower MCAT score because he’s black?” ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/150 "2009-06-04T04:41:29Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > The city might get sued accepting the results. > They did get sued not accepting them. > > They should have done the right thing: stand by their best efforts to create an equal opportunity. Let the test stand unless there was some sort of absolute evidence it was biased toward a particular group. And that evidence can not simply be the statistical analysis of the outcome; it needs to be why a particular question or process creates a bias. > > I got the whole 4/5ths thing, btw. I understand what some people think the law must say. I’ll sit back and let others with more time than I–SCOTUS players, perhaps, explain why that’s either not OK or not the case. > > What the city should have done is easy: Create a fair process. Absent evidence the process was unfair, stick to the results. > > I’d be perfectly OK, btw, with the City sitting down and saying to the firefighters in advance, “Look guys; we got 37% blacks in our population base. We are going to come up with some sort of process that gets something close to that for our firefighter leadership.” > > That’s not what they did. Not “might” get sued. Most certainly WOULD have been sued. They would have been sued because if they had accepted the results of the test, **they would have been violating federal regulations and statutes**. :smack: Now, it may be that the upshot of this case will be that these very rules and regulations in question will be found in need of change, precisely so that the City, and other employers, won’t be put in the position of disadvantaging tested candidates. But until this case came along, the City had no choice about what to do. It didn’t make its decision on the basis of attempting to produce black captains, nor did it make its decision on the basis of attempting to avoid white captains. It made the decision because the federal law it was following said: thou shalt make this decision. And why did the statutes and regulations say that? Because, despite your consistent refusal to accept this simple fact: there was evidence that the process was unfair. Specifically, it produced disparate results, AND there was testimony supporting the notion that the test was not accurately designed to test what it purported to test. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/151 "2009-06-04T05:00:38Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > there was evidence that the process was unfair. Specifically, it produced disparate results… Shirley producing disparate test results isn’t evidence of unfairness in and of itself, is it? As has been noted, black people really do perform much less well at academic tests across the board. Everywhere from elementary school to Army entrance to Law School. And despite a lot of effort nobody has been able to produce a test that doesn’t produce disparate results. To me that makes it as certain as we can be about anything that disparate results are not the result of unfair testing. IOW I’m contending that a test can be perfectly fair and still produce disparate results. > [@](#): > > … And there was testimony supporting the notion that the test was not accurately designed to test what it purported to test. Can you give more details? ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/152 "2009-06-04T08:03:20Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Shirley producing disparate test results isn’t evidence of unfairness in and of itself, is it? Are you serious? How many times must this be CAREFULLY EXPLAINED TO YOU GUYS? There have been several cites detailing the law, process, and rationale for the decisions courts made. It has been explained several times that disparate test results alone are not enough to violate federal law, nor is it absolute evidence of unfairness, in and of itself, in the minds of most rational people. > [@Blake](#): > > As has been noted, black people really do perform much less well at academic tests across the board. Everywhere from elementary school to Army entrance to Law School. And ironically, those same Black people live and are treated as Black people in elementary school, the army, and law school. I understand this may be a point you disagree with, but there is no need to confuse the issue. Countless studies have should the impact social expectations have on individuals. They demonstrate the trivial (walking and talking more slowly around old people) and the serious (doing poorly on test when primed with negative thoughts). Countless studies have shown the affect poverty, mental and physical heath, environment, and culture have on people. Why are you surprised that people who, on average, are treated worse, go to worse schools, have less money, and less positive reinforcement do less well on tests? And you needn’t just look at Black people. We can look at the relative success of groups when they move from a negative environment to a positive one to confirm that social and economic forces can act systematically. > [@Blake](#): > > And despite a lot of effort nobody has been able to produce a test that doesn’t produce disparate results. And despite a lot of effort, we haven’t been able to rid the world of people who implicitly believe in Black inferiority. > [@Blake](#): > > IOW I’m contending that a test can be perfectly fair and still produce disparate results. Correct. But the two are not necessarily related. > [@Blake](#): > > Can you give more details? Once [again](http://www.acslaw.org/node/13239) > [@](#): > > Due to concerns that the promotional exams discriminated on the basis of race in violation of the law, the city held public hearings on the issue of whether to certify the test results. The city considered whether the exams were sufficiently related to the positions in question. **Several New Haven firefighters testified that some of the questions were not relevant to the knowledge or skills necessary for the positions. The city also heard evidence as to whether fairer, more effective tests were available. Testing experts testified that other types of exams would not be expected to result in such a stark disparate impact. Testing experts also opined that alternative testing procedures could better identify the best potential supervisors for the fire department. These experts testified that “assessment center processes” and “situation judgment tests” can provide better alternatives to traditional written and oral tests.** Ultimately, the city declined to certify the test results and sought to explore less discriminatory alternatives to the exams that were administered in 2003. More [here.](http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-westfaulcon24-2009apr24,0,5548886.story) > [@](#): > > That raised the question of whether a fill-in-the-bubble exam was really the best way to evaluate whether someone was suited to a leadership position in the fire department.\*\* In fact, the company that made the test admitted that some of the items were “irrelevant” in New Haven. One question, for example, asked the test-takers whether fire equipment should be parked “uptown, downtown or underground when arriving at a fire.” The question was based on information relevant to New York City firefighters, and was on the exam even though the city of New Haven has no “uptown” or “downtown.” > \*\* > The fact that whites were disproportionately represented among the top scorers on the test is not surprising. Whites and some Asian American groups, on average, score higher than African Americans, Latinos and other Asian American groups on fill-in-the-bubble tests. Researchers have offered a host of reasons to explain racial gaps in test scores, including disparities in financial, educational and cultural resources, as well as psychological phenomena. > > **But New Haven did not scrap its promotion list simply because whites had higher scores on the test than minorities.** The city understood that Title VII does not automatically prohibit employers from using tests on which whites do better than minorities. In fact, the law acknowledges that tests are useful for evaluating and comparing job applicants. But, under Title VII, **it would be illegal for a city to promote firefighters based largely on a test that is not a good measure of a junior firefighter’s worthiness to be promoted.** > > New Haven’s attorney correctly interpreted Title VII to mean that the **city’s firefighter test should measure “who is going to be a good supervisor ultimately, not who is going to be a good test-taker.” In other cases, judges have concluded, based on expert testimony, that written, multiple-choice tests for firefighter promotion like the one in this case contain the “fatal flaw” of failing to test for “supervisory ability.” The company that made the New Haven Fire Department exam acknowledges that its test does not include any questions that measure a test-taker’s ability to supervise or lead other firefighters in the line of duty.** > > New Haven’s potential liability was made greater by the fact that **the city has been advised by testing experts, before making the promotions, that alternative, better tests were available. One expert in firefighter examinations told the city about promotion tests that produced less racial disparity.** Lastly, here is the New Haven Fire Dept. Study Guide [(PDF)](http://www.cityofnewhaven.com/Fire/pdf/NHFD%20SS%20Firefighter%20Study%20Guide.pdf). I do not beleive this is the study guide provided for the test in question, but it might give some insight to the types of questions being asked. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/153 "2009-06-04T08:18:37Z")
Calm down dude. > [@brickbacon](#): > > Are you serious? How many times must this be CAREFULLY EXPLAINED TO YOU GUYS? There have been several cites detailing the law, process, and rationale for the decisions courts made. It has been explained several times that disparate test results alone are not enough to violate federal law, nor is it absolute evidence of unfairness, in and of itself, in the minds of most rational people. 1. I came in 3 pages into a 4 page thread. I have seen no such references. I asked a simple question that required a single word answer to bring me up to speed. Thank you for your detailed response, but can the martyr BS, please, and quit implying that I’m stupid. > [@](#): > > Why are you surprised that people who, on average, are treated worse, go to worse schools, have less money, and less positive reinforcement do less well on tests? Where the F\*&K did you get that from. I never stated or implied anything remotely like that. Are you just making this shit up on the fly? > [@](#): > > And despite a lot of effort, we haven’t been able to rid the world of people who implicitly believe in Black inferiority. And… Are you attempting to argue that if a test showed that lots of people believed in black inferiority that would evidence the test is flawed? If not then I have no F%\*king idea what point your are trying to make with this apparent non sequitur. Thanks for the rest of the response, but I can do without the attitude. If you think it beneath your dignity to answer a civil question in a civil manner you may want to consider not responding at all. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/154 "2009-06-04T09:07:38Z")
> [@Fantome](#): > > Apples and oranges. One has graduated medical school and the other hasn’t. The fair question is, “Given no other information, who would you most trust to know what they’re doing in the operating room? The board-certified surgeon who had to have a higher MCAT score because he’s white or be able to pass with a lower MCAT score because he’s black?” But you are ignoring the fact that your phrasing accepts many things as predicates that have simply not been proven. You need to demonstrate that those test scores actual translate to competence and ability in the operating room, or in practice. Without doing that, your scenario is as logical as saying, who do you want operating on you, the doctor who cheats on his wife, or the one who is faithful? Do you want the one who is a scratch golfer, or the guy who got a crazy handicap? I’m sure you can sift through the tea leaves to draw some conclusion based on the facts I gave about who would be a better doctor based on some a logically tenuous correlation, but you would not be making that call based on anything but personal biases. The same personal biases that lead you to believe that testing, or even past performances (in many circumstances), are predictive of future performance or competence. I think most people make this mistake. They see what seems like a compelling, often strong correlation, and assume there is causation there; or that it will be predictive of future events with a high level of certainty. I find it’s more instructive to look at the counter examples (ie. [Ryan Leaf](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Leaf), [Harold Miner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Miner), [Christian Laettner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Laettner), [Li’s Gaussian copula function](http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant?currentPage=all), [silicone breast implants,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_implant#Silicone_gel_implants)etc. etc.) to help divorce one’s self from being overconfident in such things. It’s like when people say Harvard is a great school, when it is more accurate to say great people work and enroll at Harvard. There is nothing special about the buildings or curriculum at Harvard. In fact, if they substituted their incoming class for ASU’s, they would see their ratings drop like a stone. Harvard is only as great school so long as great people want to go to Harvard. It’s important to make sure you are focus on what is actually being appraised. An high MCAT or USMLE score does not make a good doctor, and a good reputation doesn’t make Harvard. All of those things are surrogates that work so long as the underlying correlation is valid, materially related, and necessary. What we see in the case of the doctors is that it does not seem to be the case with regard to testing and future competence. We assume that higher testing standards will result in better doctors when that doesn’t seem to be the case. Absent further evidence, that does not seem to be the case. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/155 "2009-06-04T09:39:28Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Calm down dude. > > 1. I came in 3 pages into a 4 page thread. I have seen no such references. I asked a simple question that required a single word answer to bring me up to speed. Thank you for your detailed response, but can the martyr BS, please, and quit implying that I’m stupid. I am calm, but I resent the fact that you can’t be bothered to read 4 pages of this thread, any relevant articles about the case, or the actual court documents before proceeding to post a question that has been asked and answered several times. Honestly, what do you expect when you waste people’s time because you can’t be bothered bring _yourself_ up to speed, or do a simple google search? > [@Blake](#): > > Where the F\*&K did you get that from. I never stated or implied anything remotely like that. Are you just making this shit up on the fly? What exactly should I infer when I read comments like the following in a thread (and context matters here which is why you should actually read the thread) where it has been suggested repeatedly that Blacks are genetically inferior: > [@Blake](#): > > As has been noted, black people really do perform much less well at academic tests across the board. Everywhere from elementary school to Army entrance to Law School. And despite a lot of effort nobody has been able to produce a test that doesn’t produce disparate results. Perhaps I should give you the benefit of the doubt, but I must admit my patience is wearing a little thin with this sort of commentary. If my inference was presumptuous, please explain to me what you are saying. What point are you making? If you are just stating that disparate results are an inherent artifact of this sort of testing, you would be wrong. This is not only true in general, but as it relates to this case. > [@Blake](#): > > And… > Are you attempting to argue that if a test showed that lots of people believed in black inferiority that would evidence the test is flawed? If not then I have no F%\*king idea what point your are trying to make with this apparent non sequitur. My response was to your comment about them not having made a test that has disparate results. It refers back to the previous paragraph that states that negative societal expectations have a demonstrable affect on individual test scores. My point was that we would get far closer to having tests that did not produce disparate outcomes if we get closer to a society where Black intellectual inferiority is not a mainstream notion that influences societal expectations of Black people. > [@Blake](#): > > Thanks for the rest of the response, but I can do without the attitude. If you think it beneath your dignity to answer a civil question in a civil manner you may want to consider not responding at all. Yes, and I’m the martyr. :dubious: If I was short with you I apologize, and am willing to try to start with clean slate. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/156 "2009-06-04T09:58:16Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > What exactly should I infer when I read comments like the following in a thread (and context matters here which is why you should actually read the thread) where it has been suggested repeatedly that Blacks are genetically inferior: I don’t know. Maybe you should infer that it is a fact. A fact that you don’t seem to dispute. How the hell you can infer anything from a simple statement f undisputed fact is beyond me. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/157 "2009-06-04T14:06:16Z")
sorry; duplicate… ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/158 "2009-06-04T14:09:25Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Not “might” get sued. Most certainly WOULD have been sued. They would have been sued because if they had accepted the results of the test, **they would have been violating federal regulations and statutes**. :smack: > > Now, it may be that the upshot of this case will be that these very rules and regulations in question will be found in need of change, precisely so that the City, and other employers, won’t be put in the position of disadvantaging tested candidates. But until this case came along, the City had no choice about what to do. It didn’t make its decision on the basis of attempting to produce black captains, nor did it make its decision on the basis of attempting to avoid white captains. Well sure it made its decision on the basis of trying to produce black captains. Not producing disparate results is identical to attempting to produce black captains. It’s just two ways of saying the same thing. > [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > It made the decision because the federal law it was following said: thou shalt make this decision. > > And why did the statutes and regulations say that? Because, despite your consistent refusal to accept this simple fact: there was evidence that the process was unfair. Specifically, it produced disparate results, AND there was testimony supporting the notion that the test was not accurately designed to test what it purported to test. There was not a shred–not a shred–of evidence that the process was unfair other than that it produced disparate results. “Testimony” that the test was not accurately designed is not evidence of unfairness toward a given group. No test is satisfactory to all participants, particularly those who perform poorly on it. And the only thing that makes it discardable is disparate results. If that, alone, is sufficient reason to render a test illegal, then nearly every single broadly-accepted standardized written (and many oral) test in this nation has just become illegal as a means test for qualification, because blacks as a group underperform on basically all of them to a greater ratio than the 4/5ths test requires. SATs; ACTs; LSATs; MCATs; ordinary academic exams; Pilot Certifications…the list is endless. We’ll end up in an absurd world where the only allowable tests are tests that prove everyone is equal. And my buddies at SCOTUS better agree with me on this. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/159 "2009-06-04T14:32:46Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > And despite a lot of effort, we haven’t been able to rid the world of people who implicitly believe in Black inferiority. Hey, not my reply, I know, but I represent that remark. Except that it deliberately truncates a more precise position to have an inappropriately negative rhetorical impact. And that does distract the conversation inappropriately. The overwhelming evidence from thousands and thousands of tests is that various population groups, when averaged as a population, perform disparately on tests. Specifically, a population group self-described as “black” will perform differently from a population group self-described as “white” on various tests. If the test in question is ability for the NBA, blacks–as a group–will perform superiorly. This despite huge preparatory disadvantages. If the test in question is the SAT, blacks–as a group–will perform inferiorly. This despite absolutely equivalent opportunity, including such variables as societal class and family income. Now you may complain that we have not rid the world of people who implicitly (perhaps even explicitly) believe in black or white (innate)inferiority for a given variable, but it is not as if their position is unsupportable, and it is not as if various alternate explanations of disparities among all groups–with varying degrees of difference magnitude and varying types of relative superiority–are well supported, either. To the contrary, most traditional explanations of differences–including opportunity and cultural bias–have not withstood scrutiny. Populations are different. We’ll never get rid of those of us who think those differences are genetic until there is some sort of reasonable evidence that a genetic explanation is wrong. It is not enough to hope or wish that it is wrong. As I look at my family, with its identical cultural, social and opportunity variables, and see how different I am from my siblings, it is pretty obvious that genes affect who we are. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268/160 "2009-06-04T16:42:26Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Well sure it made its decision on the basis of trying to produce black captains. Not producing disparate results is identical to attempting to produce black captains. It’s just two ways of saying the same thing. > > There was not a shred–not a shred–of evidence that the process was unfair other than that it produced disparate results. “Testimony” that the test was not accurately designed is not evidence of unfairness toward a given group. No test is satisfactory to all participants, particularly those who perform poorly on it. > > And the only thing that makes it discardable is disparate results. If that, alone, is sufficient reason to render a test illegal, then nearly every single broadly-accepted standardized written (and many oral) test in this nation has just become illegal as a means test for qualification, because blacks as a group underperform on basically all of them to a greater ratio than the 4/5ths test requires. SATs; ACTs; LSATs; MCATs; ordinary academic exams; Pilot Certifications…the list is endless. > > We’ll end up in an absurd world where the only allowable tests are tests that prove everyone is equal. > > And my buddies at SCOTUS better agree with me on this. 😃 And what will you do if they do not agree with you? What will you do if the SCotUS determines that treating “blacks” (whatever that word means) as if they have inherent traits such as a relative lack of “intelligence” (whatever THAT word means) or “ability” is per se improper under the law, absent some really strong imperative that we do so? What if they are not impressed with your notion that there is some sort of inherent racial inability on the part of blacks to do well on tests (whatever THAT means)? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-haven-firefighter-case/498268.md?page=9)