Pearson was a LEADING eugenicist. And, while we're at it, Pearson was such a gigantic fan of the Germans, that he changed the spelling of his own name from Carl to Karl. There is a very good biography of Pearson by UCLA historian of science, Ted Porter.
Chris --- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================= On 2012-10-03, at 6:06 PM, David Hogberg wrote: > > > > You said: But, if the Slate author was just shooting the breeze, I guess it > don't make no nevermind what one is talking about. > > > I suspect it was more to reach that end than any other. I never knew, > though, that Pearson was a eugenecist. > > On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Michael Palij <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:33:40 -0700, David Hogberg wrote: > > > >There's an interesting piece in today's *Slate: * > >http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/10/correlation_does_not_imply_causation_how_the_internet_fell_in_love_with_a_stats_class_clich_.single.html > > I'm not sure I understand the point behind the article, outside of the > author expressing his annoyance with reading/hearing the expression > "correlation does not imply causation". The author calls this a "cliche" > as though that were a quality that diminishes its truth value. Assuming > that the author didn't write the article because he had to write something > because he is paid to write articles -- and this article has no other > reason (well, maybe to show off some limited knowledge about statistics), > I think that the author fails to have thought through the situation and > fails to grasp the following truths: > > (1) Showing correlation is easy. Given two sets of measurements, > anyone can show whether they are associated or not (assuming that > they have basic cognitive abilities and can use either graph paper or > Excel with the data analysis toolpak turned on or an abacus or etc.). > > (2) Showing causation is hard. There are a variety of reasons why > this is true, starting with the definition of what a cause is. For some > background on how hard it has been to determine whether one has > a causal relationship or not, consider this review of the history of > theories of causation over the millennia, provided by the U.S. EPA: > http://www.epa.gov/caddis/si_history.html > Judea Pearl, a prominent contemporary theorist of causality, has a > "cute" presentation that provides an alternate perspective on the > history of causality: > http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/LECTURE/lecture_sec1.htm > Physicians and epidemiologists have used Koch's postulates as a > guide to establish whether a pathogen is the causal agent in an > illness and though it helped to think about causality, it has had to > be updated to include new understanding about the nature of pathogens; > see the Wikipedia entry on Koch's postulates: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch%27s_postulates > Some people might also want to credit Hume, Mill, Bacon, Fisher, > Wright, Popper, Sloman, etc., etc., but it might be worthwhile to > to read Paul Holland's 1986 JASA article on "Statistics and > Causal Inference"; see: > http://fitelson.org/woodward/holland.pdf > > But, if the Slate author was just shooting the breeze, I guess it > don't make no nevermind what one is talking about. > > -Mike Palij > New York University > [email protected] > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13152.d92d7ec47187a662aacda2d4b4c7628e&n=T&l=tips&o=20908 > or send a blank email to > leave-20908-13152.d92d7ec47187a662aacda2d4b4c76...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > > > > -- > David K. Hogberg, PhD > Professor of Psychology, Emeritus > Department of Psychological Science > Albion College > Albion MI 49224 > > Tel: 517/629-4834 (Home and mobile) > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=430248.781165b5ef80a3cd2b14721caf62bd92&n=T&l=tips&o=20909 > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-20909-430248.781165b5ef80a3cd2b14721caf62b...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > > > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=20910 or send a blank email to leave-20910-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
