On Thu, April 18, 2013 1:51 pm, Pete Resnick wrote: > On 4/17/13 2:21 PM, Dan Harkins wrote: >> Look, bias stinks and when it exists its stench is detectable. > > Dan, leaving aside all of your other comments for the moment (many of > which are straw men that nobody but you have suggested, speaking of > fallacies), this one comment is a serious problem since it is so > demonstrably false.
I'm sure I speak alone when I say that I hope you are only leaving my other comments aside for a moment and will return to them later. I would actually like to see a response that doesn't snip a 30-40 line post into 1 sentence. If you would like to engage me off-list, I welcome that. > Bias creeps in in all sorts of undetectable ways; if > it was always detectable, lots of statisticians and psychologists and > survey designers would be out of jobs. Aside from simple methodological > data collection problems, bias is often caused by completely unconscious > (and sometimes well intentioned) behaviors when it comes to human > endeavors. The literature on this topic is so extensive that I can't > even imagine why you would even suggest the opposite. Now we're playing a subtle word game here. A bias that a statistician might add is demonstrably different than what Melinda Shore has _repeatedly_ referred to as "gender bias". So when I'm talking about bias I'm talking about a form of discrimination based on gender. It is the intentional passing over of a more qualified woman in favor of a less qualified man. Exactly the same thing that is being referred to when she says: "I'm telling you that I think the numbers are highly suggestive of bias". What numbers are those? The observable numbers about I* leadership. What is the bias being suggested? It is a bias against women. Straw man? I think not. A statistician might put bias in his statistical result and a survey designer might put bias in a question to elicit a favored result, intentionally or unintentionally. But we both know that is not what we're talking about here. >> We already know "who we are". > > That's an interesting claim, and at least at first glance given other > comments on the list, again seemingly false. As Adrian commented, > perception is important. If it seems to some folks that the ratio of men > to women throughout the IETF is 70:1, should it turn out that it is > closer to 10:1 and the numbers in leadership are closer to 30:1, that > would not only indicate that we don't "already know 'who we are'", but > it could also be an interesting indication of why there might be > statistical bias in the selection of leadership. (Or not. But it seems > worthy of examination.) "We" are a volunteer standards organization that operates on a consensus basis. For the purposes of "who we are" the number of women that register for a meeting should be as relevant as the number of people who register that are left handed, flat footed or double jointed (for the record I am all three). In other words, not at all. There may be a statistical bias in the selection of leadership that favors left-handedness or maybe it disfavors left-handedness. Is that interesting? Maybe to someone. Is it worthwhile in finding out "who we are"? No. Dan.
