The other day I was IMing a friend of mine. She's a college graduate with two liberal arts degrees. Anyhow, I accused her best friend of racism. See, what happened was that I asked how many men this woman had dated. My friend stated 6 men. I asked if they were all white. My friend said, "Yes, all white." Well, I was like, "She's racist, she only dates white men!" Well, this wasn't convincing, so I was like, "Well, there's only a 12% expectation that she would date 6 straight white men!" Now, here, my friend was intrigued, "What, where'd you get that number?" I was like, "Well, 70% of the male population consists of white men, 0.76 results in 0.12, or 12% expectation of six straight men being white. So your friend is racist! Probably." Now...at this point I backed off, and started explaining how since her friend lived in Minnesota the probabilities didn't work out that way, and what not. But what was scary was how easy some trivial dumb baby math makes convincing people of totally ludicrous hypotheses! It was also pretty fun....
Update: Check out this dumbass comment :) I had a good laugh over this....
Razib,
Wow, you must have read the first chapter in a statistics text on probability!
You seem like a smart guy, but your sophistry in this case is sophmoric. Knowledge does not equal wisdom.
Racism is 'The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.'
A bigot is 'One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.'Just because the friend of your friend has only dated one race does not mean she is a racist. She may be, she may also be a bigot, but you would have to get in her head to know that.
You may have math skills, but could use a little liberal arts training in semantics.What on earth does being brown have to do with racism? Humans have been racists and bigots since the beginning of time, regardless of skin color. Smart guys with math skills should know that.
- Log in to post comments
The major problem in this countries public schools (at least when I went to school, in the 80s and 90s). They Teach almost no statistical theory, and very little in terms of logic. And as you can see, it shows.
I work in the IT department of a major bank. I posted the proof for x = 2x on the whiteboard and no one has yet been able to find the flaw in it.
Doesn't it make you racist for caring what race of men she was dating?
Doesn't it make you racist for caring what race of men she was dating?
i'm brown. i can't be racist. anyway, we were talking about how her roommate was picky. the various parameters came out naturally.
You so funny.
"I work in the IT department of a major bank. I posted the proof for x = 2x on the whiteboard and no one has yet been able to find the flaw in it."
can you post the proof here in the comments section.
The famous 1=2 or x = 2x theorem? Take a better look at it when you find it - there's always a step where it multiplies by a quanity that equals zero.
I suspect at some point in your proof you would have divided by 0 (or something tantamount to that) and this produced the solecism.
Let x = y
x * x = y * x
x^2 - y^2 = xy - y^2
(x + y)(x - y) = y(x - y)
x + y = y
Hence 2y = y (since x = y)
The probability of dating six men in a row is, assuming 1:1 sex ratio, is .5^6=0.0156 or about 2%. So can we convince her that she is a sexist?
Since x=y, x-y=0 so you can't divide by (x-y) in the fifth step.
Hey Razib,
I saw your latest article "Spread by the Sword" in my RSS reader but I can't seem to comment on it. I get an error and the article doesn't show up on your home page.
Good article, I think it deserves some discussion.
I saw your latest article "Spread by the Sword" in my RSS reader but I can't seem to comment on it.
it is up now. i often publish and then put into scheduled after proofreading it. the 'preview' function formats it funky.
Razib,
Wow, you must have read the first chapter in a statistics text on probability!
You seem like a smart guy, but your sophistry in this case is sophmoric. Knowledge does not equal wisdom.
Racism is 'The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.'
A bigot is 'One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.'
Just because the friend of your friend has only dated one race does not mean she is a racist. She may be, she may also be a bigot, but you would have to get in her head to know that.
You may have math skills, but could use a little liberal arts training in semantics.
What on earth does being brown have to do with racism? Humans have been racists and bigots since the beginning of time, regardless of skin color. Smart guys with math skills should know that.
robert, are you a dumbass, or do you just not know what a joke is. oh wait, if you don't know what a joke is, you are a dumbass :)
Funny, my stereotype of those "trained in the liberal arts" was that they masturbated and smoked pot all day -- you'd think this regimen would've loosened them up enough to get a fuckin' joke!