Steve Smith wrote at 04/29/2013 01:59 PM: > It is always assumed (at least by me) that (at least my own) anecdotal > observations are not just at risk of selective attention, confirmation > bias and motivated reasoning, etc. but almost *defined* by it. This > might seem like a huge admission or dismissal of my elaborate offerings > and opinions... and maybe many here have already made such, but I value > the same from others in a way that I do not value objective observation > and analysis.
Please don't take my skepticism as rejection of the data. I think I'm as big a fan of anecdotal data as you are (though perhaps not as big a fan of anecdotes as you are). In fact, I'd guess that 50% of my rhetoric always boils down to: add concrete detail to that abstract oversimplification and let's see what comes out the other end!" But I am purposefully expressing skepticism of your second defense of the existence of (or use of the term) "generations". >> What I find most useful >> are the biochemical measures. E.g. increased life span, increased >> cancer, increased rate of cancer survival, etc. I think if we can make >> an argument for generational binning, it should be in the context of >> those measures rather than (purely) cultural ones. (All these measures >> have cultural influences, of course.) > I'm not quite clear on this point. I suspect you have something here, > I'm just not getting it yet. I mean taking/analyzing impersonal data that tests the hypothesis that generations exhibit patterns. Surely, by now, we have enough data on, say, heart disease rates spanning multiple generations? If so, then we should be able to see bumps in the curves (controlling for increased life span or other "universals"). If we also have data on cancer, diabetes, obesity, tooth decay, etc, then perhaps there are bumps in those curves. If the bumps line up at all, _where_ do they line up? Are there interesting patterns of near-discontinuities or inflection points between, say, the heart disease of the greatest generation and and that of the boomers? Do all the lines increase or decrease near each other? Are there portions of the lines where variability spikes, then drops? Etc. If generations actually exist, then we should be able to see them in this type of biomedical data. > "Kids these days" are no different than they were in our (various, > skewed across decades) "day". > And yet they are... no less than we (adolescents in the 50's, 60's, > 70's, 80's ...) were different from our parents and their peers? Well, again, I'm not so sure anyone's actually different from anyone else. Sure, choose any particular measure (aka model, aka predicate) and you can bin the universe. But absent the measure, are there any differences? And how _general_ can we make the measure? Can we say that some parent-child generations exhibit more or less difference than others? Do we have _any_ measures that are objective enough to make such claims? Or are all our measures defined so contrivingly within a given generation that they are too special to say anything useful about inter-generational differences, in general? (That sentence is more fun if you swap out different pronunciations of "G". ;-) I'm not asking rhetorical questions. I truly do not know the answers. -- =><= glen e. p. ropella Sporting scarlet letters of genetic imperfection, dear ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
