conuly

That's a good question, and I think for me it's that it comes down to whether I trust the source as being unbiased or as looking to causes instead of correlations. For instance, I wouldn't argue with the height thing, nor the upper body strength, nor the breast feeding statistic since I know it's something that's been studied in great detail (though I'm now grateful I'm not in a position that I'll ever have to choose about that, given all the creepy data coming in about all the toxic build-up that gets released in a woman's milk) but as for something like the chihuahua fact - I would counter anecdotal evidence with anecdotal evidence until I saw some study that proved that chihuahuas barked more and bit more without provocation, particularly because of their breed as opposed to factors like what sort of people own them, and the different ways in which small dogs tend to be trained and socialised, etc.

I think for most people, though, it comes down to defensiveness - one can't help physiological differences, but when someone is being told that a choice they or someone they love has made is wrong (like choosing whether or not to breastfeed) or that something they love (like chihuahuas) are inferior, they will dispute it despite statistics. And of course, everyone knows that 87% of statistics are made up anyway. :-P

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conuly

*giggles*

I used the chihuahua example because my mind blanked and I couldn't think of anything else that didn't involve breastfeeding or circumcision. It's completely anecdotal - but we should pretend, for the sake of this post, that it's not, and that study after study has proven that chihuahuas are nasty, vicious little buggers.

From:

*laughs* I actually thought you were using the chihuahua example in place of ye olde pit bull argument. Imagining then that sweet little chihuahuas (can you tell I used to own one?) are well-documented demons, I have to say that it's defensiveness that makes most people argue against statistics. On the whole, people don't like being told they're wrong, especially when it comes to themselves or those they love. Intention often seems to count more than practice in the human mind. Even, or especially if, a parent has the mindset that they're going to give their child the best life possible, they will counter anything they perceive themselves as being accused of doing wrong with: "But I / my child turned out all right."

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conuly

I've been mauled by chihuahuas. Nasty, evil critters.

(In fairness, I suspect that the chihuahua problem is the counterpart to the pit bull problem - people get these dogs and think "ooh, how cute!" and let them get away with murder, and then they end up with a vicious, neurotic mess on their hands. Doesn't mean I like them, though. Too, too, too many bad experiences.)

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I understand - I was bitten by a Chow Chow once, and to this day I'm not partial to the breed. Stupid, fluffy, purple-tongued monsters...

And there are a lot of vicious, yappy Chihuahuas out there, as well as other toy breeds. They get carried too much instead of learning to deal with the world from a diminished position, they get unwittingly praised via consolation for fear responses, and too many people seem to think that the little dog growling and baring his teeth is cute and don't properly check the behaviour. Luckily, ours grew up with a Lab/Rottweiler cross, and learned the same manners she did.

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conuly

*nods*

Even though I've met some that are quite sweet - including a blind one that was only carried when the situation demanded it, and which was otherwise expected to walk like any other dog - I still just instinctively do not like them. Mostly because most of them do tend towards the vicious. It doesn't matter *why*, even - I don't want to risk heading towards a dog that's going to bite me.

However, I almost always trust a large dog. The worst I've ever seen from them is overenthusiastic jumping from a large puppy.

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When I was very young and very small there was a large dog that outmassed me. It found it funny to put its front paws around one of my legs when I was walking to trip me. Annoyingly, the adults found it funny too.

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As some of us are noting, the defensiveness comes when people start taking those statistics and drawing relative-value or moralistic conclusions from them.

I recently had a squabble on an email list with someone over the upper-body thing. His statement was "a woman should not be stronger than a man" and he followed this up by asserting that any woman who was indeed stronger was "unfeminine and unattractive". Naturally, I became angry and defensive, since the phrasing "a man" means that even the weakest of men should be taken into consideration. And dammit, I worked hard to get this strong and I'm not going to meekly accept that I'm "unfeminine and unattractive" because I'm stronger than some pipsqueak who's never set foot in a gym in his life.

Whew. Rant over. But you see what I mean. You take an innocuous statistic ("men tend to be stronger than women") and turn it into a value statement, and yes, you'll get people arguing the exceptions.

Breastfeeding is a big one. People have actually told me that my mother could, indeed, have breastfed me, despite the fact that I am adopted and she has never given birth. It's almost like a religion to them. And you never get anywhere arguing religion, either.

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conuly

Well, marveen, she could have. It's called induced lactation. Adoptive parents do that... if not all the time, at least often enough to prove that there's no reason she couldn't've breastfed you. You don't have to have given birth to breastfeed.

She may not have known that. She may not have been willing or able to put the effort into doing this (it's hardly the easiest thing to do). You may have been too old when adopted for this to have been worthwhile, or even possible (newborns are easiest, I'm told). But unless she tried it, you can't say she couldn't've done it.

I'm not saying that adoptive parents should feel bad if they don't do this - they've got enough to worry about without adding another Very Hard Thing to their list. I'm not even saying they should do this - while I'm all for breastfeeding (and milk banks! Milk banks!), there's definitely more to life than infancy and toddlerhood, and driving yourself battier than usual with a new baby isn't exactly a good survival skill. But when people say "she could have breastfed you", they're telling the truth. It was a possibility.

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Oh, I concede that it exists, now. But thirty-five years ago, where were the milk banks and the information on inducing lactation? Remember, for decades even healthy, lactating biological mothers were directed to use formula. You can't try what you don't know exists.

--Yes, I'm older than I look. (N.B.: This is by way of being a JOKE, since none of my usericons are photos.)

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conuly

It's hard to find now, even. I'm just making sure you're clear on the fact that it was, in all likelihood, physically possible for her to have done that.

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neurotica0.livejournal.com

As my recent post on poverty has shown me, people are very invested in only seeing and pointing to exceptions, rather than grasping broad patterns. Maintains the staus quo, y'see.

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peaseblossom03.livejournal.com

I also think that people are often more influenced by emotion than by logic.

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I agree with this. The human brain is more designed to analyze the world from personal examples than it is to understand statistics. It's very easy to manipulate people's beliefs, because statistics just don't affect people the same way that pictures or personal experience do. People are not inherently rational nor logical, it has to be learned - it's an acquired skill.

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conuly

It's certainly easy on the poor dears.

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ladytabitha.livejournal.com

Oh my god, I was seriously about to respond with exceptions to your "Verra few people argue these things" example. I am so very amused by this.

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*grins* A number of exceptions occurred to me as well. I've had the 'average upper-body strength' argument quite a few times.

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snale.livejournal.com

I agree with

peaseblossom03. I also think that it's easier to see patterns in things you've personally had a lot of experience with, rather than things where you've had very little personal experience.
It's like when people make comments about a race outside their own, and back it up with "I have a black/latino/asian friend and..." They're using their limited experience to prove a universal truth, which is silly, but I think that's how most people's brains work. They try to form conclusions based on the evidence that's most readily available to them. So if I'd only met one other woman in my life (we'll call her Debby), and she was taller than the men I'd met, and you told me that men are generally taller than women, I'd tell you about Debby to try to prove your point wrong. Because in my personal experience, I haven't seen your statement about male-female height ratio to be true.
Then there's the emotional aspect (as mentioned above).
I think when it comes to breastfeading, that's a highly charged issue, because no mother wants to feel that she let her child down in any way. So the offended mother in this instance will argue that she has not harmed her child, to make herself feel better. Logic doesn't usually figure in to those arguments. That goes for almost any argument that involves religion, too. People will believe what they believe and you can't convince them otherwise, no matter how sound your logic.
Which, in my opinion is one of the huge problems in the U.S. right now.
People are being told that their religious convinctions can be used in the place of logic. Intelligent Design my ass.
Um... yeah, what were we talking about?

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xiggaroo.livejournal.com

Because people are either insecure about the fact their children weren't breastfed, and don't want to admit it may have affected their health, or they don't know the difference and can't imagine that something "so small" could make such a big difference.

You can stick me into the second one, at least before I met you and Jenn. :P

From:

"children who were breastfed tend to have less allergies than children who weren't"

'Fewer' allergies, not 'less'.

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conuly

Ahem: I eschew prescriptivist linguistics as the tool of the oppressor. So there. Nyah!

(That said, I'm blushing furiously over here.)

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sporks5000.livejournal.com

Julia Childs was pretty tall too. Have you seen her? I mean like.. Woah.

On a side note, what would it take to get permission to re-post this in my journal? (giving you full credit of course.)

From:

conuly

If it's public, and I don't specifically say "don't repost", you don't even have to ask.

Otherwise - just asking.

From:

That's a good question, and I think for me it's that it comes down to whether I trust the source as being unbiased or as looking to causes instead of correlations. For instance, I wouldn't argue with the height thing, nor the upper body strength, nor the breast feeding statistic since I know it's something that's been studied in great detail (though I'm now grateful I'm not in a position that I'll ever have to choose about that, given all the creepy data coming in about all the toxic build-up that gets released in a woman's milk) but as for something like the chihuahua fact - I would counter anecdotal evidence with anecdotal evidence until I saw some study that proved that chihuahuas barked more and bit more without provocation, particularly because of their breed as opposed to factors like what sort of people own them, and the different ways in which small dogs tend to be trained and socialised, etc.

I think for most people, though, it comes down to defensiveness - one can't help physiological differences, but when someone is being told that a choice they or someone they love has made is wrong (like choosing whether or not to breastfeed) or that something they love (like chihuahuas) are inferior, they will dispute it despite statistics. And of course, everyone knows that 87% of statistics are made up anyway. :-P

From:

conuly

*giggles*

I used the chihuahua example because my mind blanked and I couldn't think of anything else that didn't involve breastfeeding or circumcision. It's completely anecdotal - but we should pretend, for the sake of this post, that it's not, and that study after study has proven that chihuahuas are nasty, vicious little buggers.

From:

*laughs* I actually thought you were using the chihuahua example in place of ye olde pit bull argument. Imagining then that sweet little chihuahuas (can you tell I used to own one?) are well-documented demons, I have to say that it's defensiveness that makes most people argue against statistics. On the whole, people don't like being told they're wrong, especially when it comes to themselves or those they love. Intention often seems to count more than practice in the human mind. Even, or especially if, a parent has the mindset that they're going to give their child the best life possible, they will counter anything they perceive themselves as being accused of doing wrong with: "But I / my child turned out all right."

From:

conuly

I've been mauled by chihuahuas. Nasty, evil critters.

(In fairness, I suspect that the chihuahua problem is the counterpart to the pit bull problem - people get these dogs and think "ooh, how cute!" and let them get away with murder, and then they end up with a vicious, neurotic mess on their hands. Doesn't mean I like them, though. Too, too, too many bad experiences.)

From:

I understand - I was bitten by a Chow Chow once, and to this day I'm not partial to the breed. Stupid, fluffy, purple-tongued monsters...

And there are a lot of vicious, yappy Chihuahuas out there, as well as other toy breeds. They get carried too much instead of learning to deal with the world from a diminished position, they get unwittingly praised via consolation for fear responses, and too many people seem to think that the little dog growling and baring his teeth is cute and don't properly check the behaviour. Luckily, ours grew up with a Lab/Rottweiler cross, and learned the same manners she did.

From:

conuly

*nods*

Even though I've met some that are quite sweet - including a blind one that was only carried when the situation demanded it, and which was otherwise expected to walk like any other dog - I still just instinctively do not like them. Mostly because most of them do tend towards the vicious. It doesn't matter *why*, even - I don't want to risk heading towards a dog that's going to bite me.

However, I almost always trust a large dog. The worst I've ever seen from them is overenthusiastic jumping from a large puppy.

From:

When I was very young and very small there was a large dog that outmassed me. It found it funny to put its front paws around one of my legs when I was walking to trip me. Annoyingly, the adults found it funny too.

From:

As some of us are noting, the defensiveness comes when people start taking those statistics and drawing relative-value or moralistic conclusions from them.

I recently had a squabble on an email list with someone over the upper-body thing. His statement was "a woman should not be stronger than a man" and he followed this up by asserting that any woman who was indeed stronger was "unfeminine and unattractive". Naturally, I became angry and defensive, since the phrasing "a man" means that even the weakest of men should be taken into consideration. And dammit, I worked hard to get this strong and I'm not going to meekly accept that I'm "unfeminine and unattractive" because I'm stronger than some pipsqueak who's never set foot in a gym in his life.

Whew. Rant over. But you see what I mean. You take an innocuous statistic ("men tend to be stronger than women") and turn it into a value statement, and yes, you'll get people arguing the exceptions.

Breastfeeding is a big one. People have actually told me that my mother could, indeed, have breastfed me, despite the fact that I am adopted and she has never given birth. It's almost like a religion to them. And you never get anywhere arguing religion, either.

From:

conuly

Well, marveen, she could have. It's called induced lactation. Adoptive parents do that... if not all the time, at least often enough to prove that there's no reason she couldn't've breastfed you. You don't have to have given birth to breastfeed.

She may not have known that. She may not have been willing or able to put the effort into doing this (it's hardly the easiest thing to do). You may have been too old when adopted for this to have been worthwhile, or even possible (newborns are easiest, I'm told). But unless she tried it, you can't say she couldn't've done it.

I'm not saying that adoptive parents should feel bad if they don't do this - they've got enough to worry about without adding another Very Hard Thing to their list. I'm not even saying they should do this - while I'm all for breastfeeding (and milk banks! Milk banks!), there's definitely more to life than infancy and toddlerhood, and driving yourself battier than usual with a new baby isn't exactly a good survival skill. But when people say "she could have breastfed you", they're telling the truth. It was a possibility.

From:

Oh, I concede that it exists, now. But thirty-five years ago, where were the milk banks and the information on inducing lactation? Remember, for decades even healthy, lactating biological mothers were directed to use formula. You can't try what you don't know exists.

--Yes, I'm older than I look. (N.B.: This is by way of being a JOKE, since none of my usericons are photos.)

From:

conuly

It's hard to find now, even. I'm just making sure you're clear on the fact that it was, in all likelihood, physically possible for her to have done that.

From:

neurotica0.livejournal.com

As my recent post on poverty has shown me, people are very invested in only seeing and pointing to exceptions, rather than grasping broad patterns. Maintains the staus quo, y'see.

From:

peaseblossom03.livejournal.com

I also think that people are often more influenced by emotion than by logic.

From:

I agree with this. The human brain is more designed to analyze the world from personal examples than it is to understand statistics. It's very easy to manipulate people's beliefs, because statistics just don't affect people the same way that pictures or personal experience do. People are not inherently rational nor logical, it has to be learned - it's an acquired skill.

From:

conuly

It's certainly easy on the poor dears.

From:

ladytabitha.livejournal.com

Oh my god, I was seriously about to respond with exceptions to your "Verra few people argue these things" example. I am so very amused by this.

From:

*grins* A number of exceptions occurred to me as well. I've had the 'average upper-body strength' argument quite a few times.

From:

snale.livejournal.com

I agree with

peaseblossom03. I also think that it's easier to see patterns in things you've personally had a lot of experience with, rather than things where you've had very little personal experience.
It's like when people make comments about a race outside their own, and back it up with "I have a black/latino/asian friend and..." They're using their limited experience to prove a universal truth, which is silly, but I think that's how most people's brains work. They try to form conclusions based on the evidence that's most readily available to them. So if I'd only met one other woman in my life (we'll call her Debby), and she was taller than the men I'd met, and you told me that men are generally taller than women, I'd tell you about Debby to try to prove your point wrong. Because in my personal experience, I haven't seen your statement about male-female height ratio to be true.
Then there's the emotional aspect (as mentioned above).
I think when it comes to breastfeading, that's a highly charged issue, because no mother wants to feel that she let her child down in any way. So the offended mother in this instance will argue that she has not harmed her child, to make herself feel better. Logic doesn't usually figure in to those arguments. That goes for almost any argument that involves religion, too. People will believe what they believe and you can't convince them otherwise, no matter how sound your logic.
Which, in my opinion is one of the huge problems in the U.S. right now.
People are being told that their religious convinctions can be used in the place of logic. Intelligent Design my ass.
Um... yeah, what were we talking about?

From:

xiggaroo.livejournal.com

Because people are either insecure about the fact their children weren't breastfed, and don't want to admit it may have affected their health, or they don't know the difference and can't imagine that something "so small" could make such a big difference.

You can stick me into the second one, at least before I met you and Jenn. :P

From: