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[Angle]

This This! may be relevant.

[Glowcat]

Do you... mean this entry or PZ's entire blog? 

[Angle]

Arg. The entry.

[Vector]

HI GUYS WANNA READ SOMETHING REALLY DEPRESSING

[Graknorke]

HI GUYS WANNA READ SOMETHING REALLY DEPRESSING

I'm not sure I trust that article. I mean, they didn't go anywhere past the statistics of deaths. They didn't try maybe actually asking people about it, which to me seems like they're missing out the fundamental piece of information you would need to draw that conclusion.

[GiglameshDespair]

1) Hurricanes were named solely with female names from 1950 through 1979. After 1979, the names were alternated between male and female. What skews the study is that it does not account for the differences in hurricane-related safety standards that existed prior to 1979 compared with the much more stringent requirements that came after that time. Without accounting for that clear skew--29 years of solely female names during a time of less stringent architectural safety requirements--it's not surprising that there would be more lives lost under female names.
 
2) The following statistic is troublesome: "Of the 47 most damaging hurricanes, the female-named hurricanes produced an average of 45 deaths compared to 23 deaths in male-named storms, or almost double the number of fatalities." Without knowing the standard deviation of these averages (that is, how they deviate from their mean, or average), these averages are rather meaningless. The sample sizes are very small (47). A few small random changes to either of these samples (whether a bridge happened to fall down or not, killing scores of people; whether a power line happened to hit a filled church, etc.) would change the outcome dramatically. If random events can change the outcome so easily, a much better description is to call the entire outcome random.
 
3) This study also suffers from a common deficiency: mixing up correlation with causation. Even apart from what I have already written, this study in no way proves causation. It's looking back in time and finding a pattern out of an infinite number of possible patterns. Such a pattern documents the past but, by itself, says nothing about the future.

The wording itself does seem designed for maximum pageviews. Is assuming someone isn't going to be violent not having respect? If you look at it from the other way, the study finds people respect men less because they assume they'll be violent. It fits the logic just as well. The whole 'not respected' thing... the study just tells us that people do have unconscious biases, not what those biases are.

Unless those people in the secondary studies were actively saying 'Nah, that storm must be a pussy because it's named after a chick!' in between slugs of moonshine I have to hold the 'not respected' conclusion in doubt. A rather small sample size, as well, with no information on the distribution of genders in the samples.

[nenjin]

That thing is a dead ringer for an Onion article. :|

Remember that whole "women want bad boys" stereotype? The one that generated the "nice guy" thing that's plaguing us right now? It relies on the idea: "A good woman will change her man." This also ties into that point of view where a woman who can't change her partner, who is instead victimized by him, must have done something wrong.

Sort of along these lines, I hate when people in a relationship talk about "training" each other. I've heard it more from guys than from woman, but I've heard it from woman too and it bugs the hell out of me. I'm not innocent of doing it either, but after I was made aware of it I can't help cringing at the phrase. Lots of times it's said in jest, but there's always that under note of tension, and I can always hear the unspoken "heheh, fuck you too...." coming off their partner. Sometimes people do need help to change, for their own sake and happiness. But putting it in those terms is demeaning to either sex.

[Glowcat]

HI GUYS WANNA READ SOMETHING REALLY DEPRESSING

I thought it was funny myself, though there are methodological issues in the paper such as male-names only being used later. I don't have access to the full paper but it seems the statistics aren't much different when only looking at years when both gendered name categories were used.

[Gatleos]

Whether that study produced valid data or not, the article reeks of sensationalism. It looks like someone just chose to interpret the data in the most controversial way possible to get attention.

The other day I heard the gist of that article (basically just repeating the name of it) parroted on the news with no additional context or commentary. It was on NPR. Top notch journalism guys.

[Orange Wizard]

Whether that study produced valid data or not, the article reeks of sensationalism. It looks like someone just chose to interpret the data in the most controversial way possible to get attention.

The other day I heard the gist of that article (basically just repeating the name of it) parroted on the news with no additional context or commentary. It was on NPR. Top notch journalism guys.

I am of the belief that all journalism must be taken with a very large pinch of salt.
Often it's just petty sensationalism. I guess most people here aren't old enough to remember the whole "ice cream causes polio" thing. Other times it's a convoluted advertising ploy. Like televisions cause cancer, or cellphones cause cancer, or microwaves cause cancer. Everything causes cancer. Except this News Inc. Newspaper. Other newspapers cause cancer.

[Dutchling]

Heh, that's.. mildly interesting?

[Helgoland]

"Ice cream causes polio"?

[Orange Wizard]

"Ice cream causes polio"?

It does, in fact. It's got something to do with how polio cases are becoming more common as urban centres expand, and ice cream sales are booming in a similar pattern.

[Graknorke]

"Ice cream causes polio"?

It does, in fact. It's got something to do with how polio cases are becoming more common as urban centres expand, and ice cream sales are booming in a similar pattern.

Ice cream also causes drowning in coastal areas. And using artificial lights makes you more likely to get a cold. Trufax.

[XXSockXX]

I wouldn't dismiss the hurricane study that easily, they just have the causality wrong. It's not that female named hurricanes kill more people because they are taken less seriously, it's rather male named hurricanes inability to communicate with their male named peers, increased performance pressure, and post-70s societal expectations to be a "Nice Guy" colliding with traditional stereotypes about strong male breadwinners that causes them to underperform. A similar effect can be observed in male students performing worse than females in schools and academia. The solution is obviously a self-help group for male named hurricanes where they can drink beer, read Schopenhauer and bitch about female named hurricanes emasculating them.