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polymathwannabe comments on Open thread, Nov. 24 - Nov. 30, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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The Wikipedia article on the Ferguson crisis says,
"the population is only one-third white and about two-thirds black"
and then says,
"Ferguson police were twice as likely to arrest African Americans during traffic stops as they were whites"
which only appears anomalous if you ignore the base rate of finding a black driver vs. a white one. (Edited to add: other factors, like how many people in each group own/drive cars, may be relevant.)
There are many valid reasons to worry about racial tensions in that town (e.g. 48/53 police members are white), but the arrest rates is not one of them.
Statistics don't work like you think they do. The number is controlled.
If you come to that conclusion, the thing you should do as a rationalist is "notice confusion". Then you would check the source and would see:
If you want to learn the relevant statistical literacy skills to understand what the sentence "Ferguson police were twice as likely to arrest African Americans during traffic stops as they were whites" usually means, the relevant subject is regressian analysis.
Thank you.