[afthonos]

This is more about knowing what the right question to ask is, which is trickier than expected. In the classic example, the people who brought the lawsuit asked “what are the odds of getting into Berkeley if you are a woman?” However, if people don’t apply to “Berkeley” but instead to “Berkeley’s College of Engineering”, then the right question is “what are the odds of getting into Berkeley’s college of engineering if you’re a woman”. The paradox is due to the fact that we expect the answers to be the same.

And all of this, of course, ignores sampling bias…