[TA0x0]

>Quite possibly, if one shows one's work on how one arrived at that statement (statistics can be bloody slippery things, and while individual data points are facts, the analysis, interpretation, and summarization of them starts to wander away from "fact," especially when one begins to do curve fitting or assumptions about population distributions).

Any and every statistical study ever done on race and crime supports the FACT stated above. Per capita, it's an indisputable fact that they commit more violent crimes, raw numbers alone, no curve fitting or extrapolation.

>And if one runs with that fact alone and tries to build behaviors on it, one's likely to fall into a similar trap to the one the phrenologists fell into: assuming that a single fact is descriptive enough of the world to dictate theory or practice.

Which brings us back to my original statement. Are facts racist and sexist?

[shadowgovt]

History shows interpretation of facts can be extremely racist and sexist.

[TA0x0]

Interpretations are not facts.

There are some facts, like the one I listed above, that are not open to interpretation.

[shadowgovt]

"Water at standard atmospheric pressure boils at 100 degrees C and freezes at 0 degrees C" is not open to interpretation.

Making a terse sociological claim from statistics is almost always open to interpretation. Statistics is the science of interpreting discrete data points, looking for patterns and relations. Lies, damn lies, and all that. The only thing that stands alone without interpretation in statistics is the input data itself, and that tells us nothing.

I suspect that for the specific claim you've made, the evidence supports the claim, but I'd want to see whether they've controlled for conflating the definition of "crimes committed" with "charged with crimes" or "convicted of crimes" to be certain. Or whether the statistics are using the Bayesian or frequentist approach (after all, the claim being made is "are more likely," and that always assumes a giant pile of unstated priors). Or or or, etc.

Even still, whether the statistical claim being made is fact is uninteresting. If one assumes it's fact, the interesting question is "What do you do with it?" In isolation, with that one fact? Nothing. It's not nearly enough info to form theory or policy. Which is why my original response to your original post was about interpretation, not fact. Interpretation is where things get interesting. Facts without interpretation are dead as rocks.

[TA0x0]

>Making a terse sociological claim from statistics is almost always open to interpretation.

Almost, but in specific cases like above, it is not open to interpretation. It's a raw fact.

>Statistics is the science of interpreting discrete data points, looking for patterns and relations.

And organizing and presenting discrete data, without interpolation.

>The only thing that stands alone without interpretation in statistics is the input data itself, and that tells us nothing.

Wrong. Basic presentation without interpolation is a core pillar of statistics.

>I suspect that for the specific claim you've made, the evidence supports the claim, but I'd want to see whether they've controlled for conflating the definition of "crimes committed" with "charged with crimes" or "convicted of crimes" to be certain.

Even with controlling, African Americans are charged, commit, and are convicted of more crimes than Asian Americans.

>Or whether the statistics are using the Bayesian or frequentist approach (after all, the claim being made is "are more likely," and that always assumes a giant pile of unstated priors).

None of the above, just basic summary statistics.

>Even still, whether the statistical claim being made is fact is uninteresting. If one assumes it's fact, the interesting question is "What do you do with it?"

It's super interesting, considering what the OP asked.

>Nothing. It's not nearly enough info to form theory or policy.

It's more than enough info to form theory, and possibly policy.

>Which is why my original response to your original post was about interpretation, not fact.

And what I've stated above is fact, not interpretation. Back to square one.

>Interpretation is where things get interesting. Facts without interpretation are dead as rocks.

Wrong. Facts without interpretation are as alive as can be, and stand on their own.

[shadowgovt]

> It's more than enough info to form theory, and possibly policy.

Can you give an example? What kind of policy would you form around that statistic?