Friday, May 27, 2005
The Numbers Game
I hate it when people use bad stats to push a story or cause.
The most recent one here in Des Moines centered around an article for Bike to Work Week. The Des Moines Register was reporting on people coming into work on their bicycles and at some point commented that it was kind of dangerous because drivers of cars do not treat them as their equal, or in some cases don't even see them. Some idiot wrote an editorial saying the stats do not support that lie! He quoted that only 4 bicyclists died in traffic accidents last year in Iowa compared to over a hundred motorists. Therefore bicycling is actually safer! OK, I hope I do not have to point out the stupidity here. When comparing 2 things that have a dissimiliar number pool, you have to take percentages. When you use his numbers to create percentages, by looking at fatalities per hour on the road, I am sure you will see how much safer you are in a car than a bicycle (or motorcycle for that matter).
The one that burns me the most that I see all the time is the following rant made by liberals, "Company ABC is not diverse because only Y% of their engineers are minorities compared with Z% of the population." This stat, while probably true, is totally misused time and again. They should not be comparing the diversity of their employees to the population. What they should be doing is comparing the diverstiy of their employees to the diversity of engineers graduating. Even that is misleading as you have to not only consider the last graduating class, but historically as well since most of the companies employees were hired in the past. So, then the question becomes, "Why are only X% of engineers a minority compared with Z% of the population?" This is good, because now we are trying to get to the root of the problem. Rather than accuse Company ABC of something they are not, we are trying to find the cause. Is it the fault of colleges, high schools? All we would have to do is follow the percentages down the line to see. It might even go beyond the fault of any school, but we don't know because they are too busy using the race card.
The other one that bugs me is women in management. Now, I will admit there might be a problem somewhere, but we will never know because once again it is assumed that if management is not 50% women, something is wrong. There is so much to consider before making this assumption. For example, upper management is almost exclusively men. However, these men have had years of moving up the ladder and they started when women were unfairly shut out. Now that women are not being shut out like they were in the past, we cannot expect to have all these women CO's when they are still working up through the ranks. Also, I would love to see the 2 stats on this. What percentage of women are working professionally? I bet it's below 50% which means once again we should not be using the 50% stat. Second, what percentage of women vs men want to be in management? I bet you will also find that men lead, probably only slightly.
I am not saying there aren't racist or bigot hiring practices going on, but I am saying we need the whole story to know what is truly going on. Not statistics being used poorly.
The most recent one here in Des Moines centered around an article for Bike to Work Week. The Des Moines Register was reporting on people coming into work on their bicycles and at some point commented that it was kind of dangerous because drivers of cars do not treat them as their equal, or in some cases don't even see them. Some idiot wrote an editorial saying the stats do not support that lie! He quoted that only 4 bicyclists died in traffic accidents last year in Iowa compared to over a hundred motorists. Therefore bicycling is actually safer! OK, I hope I do not have to point out the stupidity here. When comparing 2 things that have a dissimiliar number pool, you have to take percentages. When you use his numbers to create percentages, by looking at fatalities per hour on the road, I am sure you will see how much safer you are in a car than a bicycle (or motorcycle for that matter).
The one that burns me the most that I see all the time is the following rant made by liberals, "Company ABC is not diverse because only Y% of their engineers are minorities compared with Z% of the population." This stat, while probably true, is totally misused time and again. They should not be comparing the diversity of their employees to the population. What they should be doing is comparing the diverstiy of their employees to the diversity of engineers graduating. Even that is misleading as you have to not only consider the last graduating class, but historically as well since most of the companies employees were hired in the past. So, then the question becomes, "Why are only X% of engineers a minority compared with Z% of the population?" This is good, because now we are trying to get to the root of the problem. Rather than accuse Company ABC of something they are not, we are trying to find the cause. Is it the fault of colleges, high schools? All we would have to do is follow the percentages down the line to see. It might even go beyond the fault of any school, but we don't know because they are too busy using the race card.
The other one that bugs me is women in management. Now, I will admit there might be a problem somewhere, but we will never know because once again it is assumed that if management is not 50% women, something is wrong. There is so much to consider before making this assumption. For example, upper management is almost exclusively men. However, these men have had years of moving up the ladder and they started when women were unfairly shut out. Now that women are not being shut out like they were in the past, we cannot expect to have all these women CO's when they are still working up through the ranks. Also, I would love to see the 2 stats on this. What percentage of women are working professionally? I bet it's below 50% which means once again we should not be using the 50% stat. Second, what percentage of women vs men want to be in management? I bet you will also find that men lead, probably only slightly.
I am not saying there aren't racist or bigot hiring practices going on, but I am saying we need the whole story to know what is truly going on. Not statistics being used poorly.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Memories
I noticed a long time ago something that I found interesting and thought I should point it out here.
I once discovered sometime after college that when I thought back and remembered college, I would remember it or replay the moment in one of 2 ways: 1st person and 3rd person. It seemed that most of what happened my Freshman and Sophomore years was remebered in 3rd person, or I would view the memory from outside my self. Later years I remembered in first person, seeing through my eyes. I found it kind of weird and figured it had something to do with how old the memory was, since my pre-college memories were also 3rd person.
Then one day at work I was remembering a particular good memory from early high school where I was at a party and making people laugh. But it suddenly hit me that I had remembered it from 1st person. Why? My history theory did not fit.
After that I just started randomly remembering things to see how I remembered them. I found quite a few old memories that I remembered 1st person, although most were 3rd person. So, I have come up with a new theory that appears to work. What I think is going on is if I was acting like my true self in the memory, I see it 1st person. If I am not being myself and more or less going through the motions of life, I see it 3rd person. I did not discover myself until early Junior year in college. By discovering myself I mean I said, "To hell what anyone thinks, I am tired of being judged by my peers, parents, and employers. I am going to be who I want to be." From that point on most if not all of my memories are 1st person. The old memories that are 1st person are all situations where I was truly being myself, not caring what others thought or worried about how I looked.
After I figured this out, I wondered if when I grew older and changed over time if I would start switching some 1st person memories to 3rd person memories. But, I have yet to notice that. I could still care less what anyone thinks... or not too much anyway. :)
I once discovered sometime after college that when I thought back and remembered college, I would remember it or replay the moment in one of 2 ways: 1st person and 3rd person. It seemed that most of what happened my Freshman and Sophomore years was remebered in 3rd person, or I would view the memory from outside my self. Later years I remembered in first person, seeing through my eyes. I found it kind of weird and figured it had something to do with how old the memory was, since my pre-college memories were also 3rd person.
Then one day at work I was remembering a particular good memory from early high school where I was at a party and making people laugh. But it suddenly hit me that I had remembered it from 1st person. Why? My history theory did not fit.
After that I just started randomly remembering things to see how I remembered them. I found quite a few old memories that I remembered 1st person, although most were 3rd person. So, I have come up with a new theory that appears to work. What I think is going on is if I was acting like my true self in the memory, I see it 1st person. If I am not being myself and more or less going through the motions of life, I see it 3rd person. I did not discover myself until early Junior year in college. By discovering myself I mean I said, "To hell what anyone thinks, I am tired of being judged by my peers, parents, and employers. I am going to be who I want to be." From that point on most if not all of my memories are 1st person. The old memories that are 1st person are all situations where I was truly being myself, not caring what others thought or worried about how I looked.
After I figured this out, I wondered if when I grew older and changed over time if I would start switching some 1st person memories to 3rd person memories. But, I have yet to notice that. I could still care less what anyone thinks... or not too much anyway. :)
