NTs Are Unable to Grasp The Simple Concepts of Probability.

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Aspie_Chav
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01 May 2008, 4:30 pm

NTs are unable to grasp the simple concepts of probability. The last time I was aware of this was at work. We was talking about the fact my sister has not found the right man. I said she is attractive, but being black does not help. They said,” how does that effect things; everyone has different tastes and being black doesn’t effect things. If a stranger walked into this office they would go for the attractive black girl, who worked in the adjacent office.

Often whenever I find I make a statement about probability and percentage, I am given exceptions in such large numbers that it appears invalidate what I have said. The only way for them to see thing from my point of view is to do the same.

Statistically women live longer then men.
I could say,” this isn’t true, my own grandfather lived to 102, most males in my family live beyond 80s. I now a guy 83 years old who goes to the Nottinghill Carnival, no woman of 60 can move like he does. Mannn, when I went to the gym, all I could see is unhealthy fat ladies and fit and musclely men. There are so many factors that effect ones general health, like genes weather someone smokes, drinks etc that it is impossible to make such a sweeping statement.”



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01 May 2008, 6:47 pm

A more accurate statement would be people who have no knowledge in basic statistics have no grasp of probabilities. I've noticed many people on this board do not really understand the concept of probability; also NTs who have studied statistics would be less likely to make such claims (although, I suppose you could say those with AS are more logical than average, so are probably more accepting of probability and statistics). But overall, I'd agree with you; we constantly see people ignoring probabilities either because they don't believe them or on average they believe they are above average. Alternatively, people don't like "being treated as a statistic" (I remember reading some medical article where the doctor gave a patient his survival rate for a certain operation and the patient yelled back "Don't treat me like a statistic"; similarly, if a patient has a 98% chance of dying no matter what, they almost always insist that every option be tried to save them, no matter how costly or how low probability, which is really quite wasteful).



Macbeth
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01 May 2008, 7:01 pm

With something as complicated as dating, with so many random factors involved, surely the probability of anything happening or not happening is about equal? Everything from physical characteristics.. "too short, too tall, too black, too white".. to positioning, chance, demeanour, etc etc.


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01 May 2008, 8:22 pm

Quote:
With something as complicated as dating, with so many random factors involved, surely the probability of anything happening or not happening is about equal? Everything from physical characteristics.. "too short, too tall, too black, too white".. to positioning, chance, demeanour, etc etc.


What you describe would further the argument that the probability is not about equal or 50% in relation to dating. If you are able to control and minimize some these various factors, then maybe you could say the probability of success is equally likely as not likely. For example, people tend to marry those with similar IQ levels, therefore we would assign a low probability of success if one person has an IQ of 145 while the other has one of 90. Good looking people also tend to pair off with other good looking people, races by and large tend to marry within their own race (although this trend has fallen in recent times). Aside from that, you must like the person, and they must also like you, which is another whole factor that alters probabilities. Because there are these factors, if you saw a random person you think you like, and you aren't controlling for anything special (i.e. you did not see this person at a Mensa meeting), then you probably should assign a lower probability of success considering all these factors. The more information you know, the more the subjective probability changes from the first more random one and the more accurate it becomes. Unless of course, you're a Bayesian in which case you should assume the prior probability as the correct one.



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01 May 2008, 8:55 pm

Or there is base probability.

The chances of anything happening are exactly 50%

It either will, or it wont...


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02 May 2008, 12:28 am

The chances of an aspie man or any disabled man are more like 1 out of a billion, moreso than 50%.
Unless he's been sheltered and treated like a child his whole life (hince I don't mean this as an insult, some people really are that handi-capped and need it this way... Although others are just further handi-capped by it), because then he'll have other shelter-disability friends through local networks...... But shelter people are very very very status quo, straight-laced people.
So for a non-status quo, non-straight-laced, disabled or aspie man, yeah, the chances are like 1 in a billion.... Unless that unsheltered aspie man has tons and tons of money.



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02 May 2008, 12:31 am

I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the OP's statistics, I haven't looked that deeply into it... But statistics in general are hard to believe, I mean how can you test a statistic? Unless it's a painfully obvious statistic.



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02 May 2008, 1:09 am

I can even use NT unlogic to prove aspies don’t have a harder time dating. I could say,” There was an aspie girl at work who lived hiking but she had no problems finding a date since hiking is generally a male activity and men loved her for her passion. I also know of a Systems Architect who works in the city he has loads of money and doesn’t find any problems finding a date. It is often the case that NTs continue to make the same mistake regards dating, while aspies seek out logical advice from books etc. Aspies often have their small communities and networks such as this site where they can find like minded people like themselves.



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02 May 2008, 1:17 am

Aspie_Chav wrote:
NTs are unable to grasp the simple concepts of probability. The last time I was aware of this was at work. We was talking about the fact my sister has not found the right man. I said she is attractive, but being black does not help. They said,” how does that effect things; everyone has different tastes and being black doesn’t effect things. If a stranger walked into this office they would go for the attractive black girl, who worked in the adjacent office.



so what lead you to this conclusion?



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02 May 2008, 1:53 am

Macbeth wrote:
Or there is base probability.

The chances of anything happening are exactly 50%

It either will, or it wont...

No. You think the probability of the world ending tomorrow is 50%? The fact that there are discrete outcomes (it will happen, or it won't) does not mean that all outcomes are equally likely. I could go to school tomorrow, or I could run off to join the circus. Both could happen, but the latter is much less likely.


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02 May 2008, 2:12 am

Pictures of your sister?



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02 May 2008, 7:08 am

Quote:
I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the OP's statistics, I haven't looked that deeply into it... But statistics in general are hard to believe, I mean how can you test a statistic? Unless it's a painfully obvious statistic.


Some statistics, maybe (the kind that the data has been tortured with the goal of producing a desired result). But most non-tortured statistics (which would be in general) can be replicated using the same or different data sets. As for believing them, you need to look at the r squared value to determine if you should or shouldn't trust it. You shouldn't just discard a whole field because you don't like or believe in the results.



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02 May 2008, 9:26 am

Orwell wrote:
Macbeth wrote:
Or there is base probability.

The chances of anything happening are exactly 50%

It either will, or it wont...

No. You think the probability of the world ending tomorrow is 50%? The fact that there are discrete outcomes (it will happen, or it won't) does not mean that all outcomes are equally likely. I could go to school tomorrow, or I could run off to join the circus. Both could happen, but the latter is much less likely.


Ahh, but the chances of the world ending tomorrow are a million to one. And as we all know, million to one chances crop up 9 times out of ten.


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02 May 2008, 11:07 am

I read an article once that the human brain is not well equipped to understand physics, and the same probably goes for statistics. I have a fairly good understanding of statistics, and also find that people make strange interpretations of situations.

I am not sure that it is a NT thing. There are lots of people on this board that have problems with basic logic, and I think they would act just like NTs if put into a statistical situation.



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02 May 2008, 11:58 am

When your life is on the line statistics or probability is of no consequence. If you are not severely disturbed you will exert every effort to stay alive, whatever the probability



Sargon
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02 May 2008, 6:23 pm

Quote:
When your life is on the line statistics or probability is of no consequence. If you are not severely disturbed you will exert every effort to stay alive, whatever the probability


Isn't that when statistics or probability should be of the greatest consequence? If you know there is a 98% chance an illness will kill you, shouldn't you act as if you will die (i.e. do those things that dying people do)? You can personally try to exert every effort to stay alive, but what about the opportunity cost? What if a procedure costs you personally $20,000 and has a .1% chance of working? Would you do it, or would you use that money for your family? What if a treatment has a 20% chance to extend your dying life by a week max and costs $20,000? Aside from that, if your life is on the line, don't you want to know the probabilities of certain treatments or success rate of doctors? If a doctor preforming a procedure has a 1% mortality rate vs one that has a 5%, I'd sure want to know.