Ill never understand people who insist that you cannot generalise because they themselves are an exception. Like do you even understand what a generalisation is and what the purpose of it is? Its a convenient means to establish probabilities, it can be discarded as necessary and those that are excluded can exempt themselves. For example, its believed that serial killers are often tormentors of animals in their youth. If you have, say, 10 serial killers and 9 of them admit to having tortured animals as children, I can generalise that *most* serial killers will in all likelihood have done so. Now if that last one came forward and said you cant generalise because I didnt torment animals as a child, but Im still a serial killer, it would be ridiculous. The point is to draw quick conclusions based on the higher probability, for if I interviewed another serial killer, chances are he tortured animals as a child. Which I would assume to be the case based on the likelihood. To say well 1 out of 10 didnt do that, so chances are he didnt would be the height of idiocy because it would be the precise opposite of statistical probability. Why on earth would someone conclude that the less likely outcome has a greater chance of being correct? Many people seem to imagine that simply because the generalisation doesnt apply to them, that the generalisation is disproven. Apparently they dont understand how generalisations work.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 10:24:13 +0000
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