Decius comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong

157 Post author: Yvain 27 August 2012 03:36AM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 30 August 2012 03:30:15AM 1 point [-]

and that there are more than one hundred thousand Americans who demonstrably either claim, or allow the claim to stand, that EP justifies sexist actions that they themselves take.

I'm prepared to defend the second assertion if needed, which is why I choose a conservative number.

I'd be interested in seeing this. Largely because I'm curious to see specific examples of what you consider unjustified sexism.

Comment author: Decius 30 August 2012 03:34:35PM -1 points [-]

Wait, are you asserting that sexism is ever justified? If so, we have a definition mismatch.

For a start, we have Forbes Magazine drawing a link from EP to why most women will never be CEOs (Never mind that most people will never be CEOs). I haven't yet demonstrated how many readers of Forbes allowed the claim that EP justifies the sexist treatment of executives, and also take sexist actions regarding executives; will you accept that 5% of board members of publicly traded companies make sexist decisions about executives, and that 80% of those people read Forbes and didn't object to that (4% of board members overall)? (again, I'm using numbers that I think are conservative, because direct measurements are hard.)

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 31 August 2012 12:47:51AM -1 points [-]

I haven't yet demonstrated how many readers of Forbes allowed the claim that EP justifies the sexist treatment of executives

Since I specified unjustified sexism, you'll have to provide an argument for why said justification is incorrect.

Comment author: Decius comment score below threshold [+] (6 children)

Comment author: Incorrect 31 August 2012 04:10:02PM * 4 points [-]

What about going from "members of subcategory X of category Y are more likely to possess characteristic C" to "In the absence of further information, a particular member of subcategory X is more likely to possess characteristic C than a non-X member of category Y".

You are saying you can't go from probabilistic information to certainty. This is a strawman.

Comment author: Decius 31 August 2012 04:38:47PM 2 points [-]

That only applies if there is an absence of further information. Do you make judgments about what the weather is right now by looking only at historical information, or do you look out the window?

Also, if you're going to get into category theory:

members of subcategory X of category Y are more likely to possess characteristic C

Category A is a subset of category X Category B is mutually exclusive with category X, but a subset of Y Category B is smaller than category A Given only "members of subcategory X of category Y are more likely to possess characteristic C", can you draw a conclusion about whether a random member of category A or category B is more likely to possess characteristic C?

Let characteristic C be "will perform above the 75th percentile of CEOs", category X be 'males', category A be 'males who being seriously considered for a CEO position', and category B be 'females and intersex people being considered for a CEO position'.

It's only a strawman if it isn't the exact argument being used in the boardroom.

Comment author: Incorrect 31 August 2012 06:34:06PM 0 points [-]

Sounds good to me if you're going to get all connotative about it.

Comment author: Decius 01 September 2012 01:54:12AM 0 points [-]

Was that sour grapes with an ad-hom, genuine agreement with a condition, sarcasm, or something else? I honestly can't tell.

Comment author: Incorrect 01 September 2012 02:22:29PM 2 points [-]

Genuine agreement with whimsical annoyance about having to consider actual situations and connotations.

Comment author: Decius 02 September 2012 02:20:17AM 0 points [-]

Thank you for the clarification.

Decius comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong

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