A Jew, a racist and an ox walk into a pub…

Posted by Søren Renner on April 05, 2006, 05:13 PM | #

I get it! The ox has been debulled, the Jew is circumcised—only the racist may possibly have intact genitals. Therefore the racist will win.

Posted by Guessedworker on April 05, 2006, 05:21 PM | #

Danny boy answers your question, Alex.  In his ST piece he writes - and please note the punchline:-

In the autumn of 1906, as recorded by James Surowiecki in his excellent book The Wisdom of Crowds, the scientist Francis Galton visited the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition. While there he found his eyes drawn to a guess-the-weight-of-an-ox competition. Butchers and farmers were taking part, but so were ordinary visitors without any expert knowledge. Galton was interested in how bad their guesses would prove to be.

Galton was to be surprised. The average of the 800 guesses during the day was almost exactly right and, crucially, much more accurate than any individual expert assessment. What he had discovered was something counter-intuitive — that even the wildest incorrect guess plays its role in helping to produce an accurate average guess.

Dr Ellis is a lecturer in Russian and Slavic Studies. He probably has as firm a grip on the study of IQ and ethnicity as he does on the study of ox-weighing. But his view is useful in both, regardless of its correctness. Allowing mistaken views to have a voice in the academy is a vital part of determining the truth.

Posted by Alex Zeka on April 05, 2006, 05:50 PM | #

But what if some of us choose to live in homogenously white communities? Would Mr. Finky, siding with the CRE and his Times colleagues, call this “passive apartheid”?

Posted by Andy on April 05, 2006, 06:05 PM | #

Dr Ellis is a lecturer in Russian and Slavic Studies. He probably has as firm a grip on the study of IQ and ethnicity as he does on the study of ox-weighing. But his view is useful in both, regardless of its correctness. Allowing mistaken views to have a voice in the academy is a vital part of determining the truth.

  This line of argumentation has gotten old really fast. According to Finkelstein, for Dr. Ellis’ opinion to be worthwhile, he would apparently have to be a lecturer in “IQ and Ethnicity”.  Strange. I can’t seem to find any universities that offer professorships in this area. The only sensible conclusion is that no one can talk about race and ethnicity, as none of us is sufficiently qualified.

This is just a lame, lazy ad hominem argument. If Ellis is unqualified to speak on a subject because it lies outside his formal training in Russian, then I declare that Finkelstein is unqualified to pontificate on any subject other than typing and newpaper-office hijinks. 

It’s doubtless true that if the controversy was regarding Arthur Jensen making the same comments, Finkelstein would find a way to smear him, though surely no one is more qualified to speak on IQ than Dr. Jensen.

Posted by Alex Zeka on April 05, 2006, 06:20 PM | #

Andy, as I said, what’s Finky’s responce if somebody answers “I want to live ina homogenously white community” or even “I want to point out a scientifically proven fact about race”? Yup, no aggregating the guesses, it’s to the political ghetto with you! You can have any ox, provided it’s not white.

Posted by Calvin on April 05, 2006, 08:41 PM | #

I think there is some kind of false logic inherent in this analogy. The people guessing the weight of the ox are guessing within known paramaters, however ignorant the guessers are of oxen in general they know that an ox weighs more than a dog and less than an elephant.

I’ve no idea how much an ox weighs, but I’d guess that your average ox must weigh around the same as six well built men. I think that the fallacy lies in the assumption that because urbanites know very little about animal husbandry this general ignorance is relevant to an assesement of a ability to guesstimate the weight of animals. You dont need to know how to deliver a calve to estimate the weight of a cow.

It’s abit like assuming that English professors would be better at guessing the weight of a dictionary, or perhaps I’ve had too much vodka?

Posted by A. Windaus on April 05, 2006, 09:08 PM | #

The ox mentioned was 1198 pounds, or 543.4 kilograms.

It seems Norman Finkelstein has been reading James Surowiecki’s book, The Wisdom of Crowds. Surowiecki took an excerpt of the writings of the world famous scientist, Sir Francis Galton, the father of modern day Eugenics, and cousin of Charles Darwin.

Sir Galton wrote that for a shilling, one could purchase a ticket on which one would write an estimate of the weight of an ox. The ticket with the guess closest to the actual weight would win the ox. Galton found that the mean of all guesses was in fact more accurate than the best guess, even though the guessers included livestock experts. This is a good illustration of the fact that a collective judgment may often be more correct than the judgment of any individual expert — something which appears to be true in financial markets, for example.

Posted by A. Windaus on April 05, 2006, 09:31 PM | #

I forgot to mention (just if any are interested) that Surowiecki extrapolated from Galtons experiment and from other information that in order to predict winners, political opinion pollsters would do better to ask people who they think will win an election, rather than who they want to win because there is a group wisdom.

In this he is correct as bookmakers are on average better predictors than pollsters because punters tend to bet on what they think a result will actually be, rather than what result they want it to be.

A theory continues on this that says that if you can convince the people that you are going to win then you will win, and this is probably a reason why minority parties will always will remain so.

This is why you must always… PROJECT CONFIDENCE IN ALL THAT YOU DO!

Posted by ben tillman on April 05, 2006, 11:13 PM | #

Link????????

Posted by ben tillman on April 05, 2006, 11:17 PM | #

Okay, GW - I see the link - thanks.

But it is Daniel Finkelstein, not Norman.

Posted by Alex Zeka on April 06, 2006, 06:17 AM | #

My mistake, there’s also a Norman F. writing for the Times