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Tuesday Open Thread | 72 comments (72 topical)
Re: Tuesday Open Thread (none / 0) (#55)
by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Apr 18, 2006 at 07:09:59 PM EST
BB: Let's say that you take a steno pad with you the next time you're driving. Now, let's say that you put a collumn for every race on the pad and then place tally marks under the appropriate heading each time you spot someone driving slow in the fast lane. For the sake of argument, let's say after two weeks that you observe 20,000 examples and that your experience leads to the conclusion that elderly caucasian men are most often the offending group. Can you seriously infer that all caucasians are genetically/intellectual prone to being inconsiderate drivers? Of course not. You could have an argument if you could somehow prove that the overwhelming majority of those elderly men in your sample were visually impaired. You could have an argument if you could prove through psychological profile that all of those drivers are culturally pre-disposed to being inconsiderate. These are acceptable in the realm of science and statistics. But racially biased theory is inherently flawed. It speaks more about the observer than the observation. Next time, forget the color of the person and tell them that they're inconsiderate in a manner that best suits the situation (i.e. flip them a bird and get over it.)

Tuesday Open Thread | 72 comments (72 topical)

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