saturn comments on Sociosexual Orientation Inventory, or failing to perform basic sanity checks - Less Wrong

3 Post author: taw 16 September 2009 10:00AM

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Comment author: saturn 18 September 2009 10:33:10PM 0 points [-]

If such extreme female outliers really existed, at least some surveys would show number of partners for women being massively higher than for men, just by including one such person by chance.

But don't surveys generally throw out outlier responses?

Comment author: MichaelBishop 23 September 2009 09:03:50PM 0 points [-]

Define outlier. I have thrown out, or capped, data that is logically impossible, but I've also knowingly, and unknowingly included outliers I was skeptical of because there is no widely agreed upon standard for treating them. I could try many different standards/assumptions, and see if they affect my analysis but this type of work is time consuming and would not be of less interest to my colleagues than the work I would have to sacrifice. I realize this is sometimes problematic and I will make some effort to shift the standards in my discipline, sociology.

Comment author: taw 19 September 2009 12:23:58AM 0 points [-]

It would be a stupid thing to do. In any case that 48-nation survey mentioned throwing away highest 1% of male responses, as supposed outliers, and nothing about throwing away any female responses, which is extremely incompatible with "female outliers" theory.