Pattern First Abraham Wald, during World War II, examined bullet-hole patterns on returning bombers. Every other analyst in the room recommended reinforcing the areas with the most damage. Wald recommended reinforcing the areas with no holes — because planes hit there didn't return. The story compresses a sophisticated statistical insight (selection effects in observational data) … Continue reading A Taxonomy of Epistemic Parables
Tag: taxonomy
A Taxonomy of Hate
I have been thinking about what distinguishes misanthropy from various forms of X-ism, whether racism, sexism, classism, or some other thing. Various X-isms seem like special cases of misanthropy. Sexism is a kind of hatred of women. Racism is a kind of hatred of one or other races. When framed in that way, it occurs … Continue reading A Taxonomy of Hate
