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To: henkster

What you say may very well be true statistically, but that doesn’t make it absolutely true for all people. Men are taller, statistically, than women, but individual women can be much taller than individual men, the average male height, or even a tall male height. I think charges of racism and sexism arise from the misuse of statistical quantities to imply subgroup absolutes, as you have done. That pilot in particular might very well be able to wipe the floor with you on spatial reasoning tasks, for all you or I know.


23 posted on 09/25/2014 8:58:20 AM PDT by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: coloradan

Of course individuals deviate from the general population within a standard range. It’s a mistake to automatically attribute general qualities of the group to an individual (racism). But it’s also just as much a fallacy to pretend that those general attributes don’t exist, when statistically it has been shown that they do.

Major Mariam Al Mansouri is undoubtedly a better fighter pilot than I could ever be. But I would maintain that I would make a better fighter pilot than the vast majority of the female population. Danica Patrick is a better stock car driver than I would ever be, but again, I would make a better stock car driver than the vast majority of the female population.

My point was the basis for the general reason there are not more women fighter pilots. Or for that matter, why women generally do not do as well as men in endeavors that rely upon the ability to use spatial and motion judgment.


41 posted on 09/25/2014 11:09:24 AM PDT by henkster (Do I really need a sarcasm tag?)
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