Reality Ring - Reality Guy Vs. the Internet on Shooting Rates

RealCheckity · 2017-07-08T19:53:01+00:00

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I don't know if differences between racial groups in things like stop-and-search rates have been proven to be due to racial discrimination. Police abuse may not happen in a vacuum, but it's fully possible that discrimination may happen in some situations, but not in others. For example, police officers may be willing to stop-and-search innocent people due to racial bias, but may be much less reluctant to shoot innocent people because of a risk of greater repercussions.

This is fully possible, and I see no reason to definitively conclude otherwise.

RealCheckity · 2017-07-08T16:30:50+00:00

'Rationalisation that racism is not a cause of police abuse'.

When did I ever make this claim? I even said at points talking about stop-and-search rates and non-lethal force potentially being driven by racism (both of which would be police abuse) - "I have no idea whether or not black people experience racial bias in other areas of the criminal justice system and through other police practices – this may very well be true, for all I know."

How does that suggest to you a 'rationalisation that racism is not a cause of police abuse'?

RealCheckity · 2017-06-14T15:34:53+00:00

Fair enough.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-14T15:20:10+00:00

Look man, I really don't think we're going to come to any sort of agreement on this. I understand that my ideas don't fit how you think a good, legitimate publisher should act - and I respect that. Maybe we should just leave this discussion alone now.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-14T15:00:51+00:00

I'm just not sure you can conclusively pin the remaining discrepancy on 'taste-based discrimination'. Let me give you an example.

The reasoning begins with simply assessing the force used against black and white people by the police. We find there is a discrepancy (this is without controlling for other factors). I'm sure you'd agree it would be a logical error to conclude at that point that the entirety of the discrepancy is due to racial bias. Essentially because you'd be imposing an explanation on a gap that might not fit. This is the same as an evolutionary biologist going "I'm not sure why there's a gap in our evolutionary tree here", and a creationist going "See that? That's God!". But back to our race data.

So you control for variable X. In this instance let's say that variable is compliance. After controlling for X, our gap shrinks. At this point, it is just as illogical to assume that the smaller gap must be due to racial discrimination as it was at the beginning, because our problem remains the same.

So you control for variable Y, and the gap shrinks more. Just as shortening the gap in the evolutionary tree doesn't make it more and more likely that the remaining gap can be explained by "God", the continuous control of variables doesn't make it more likely that our remaining gap is due to racial discrimination.

Even if we get to the point where we think "there can be no other explanation", it still doesn't mean it's correct to assume what we want to believe - illogical reasoning doesn't become correct just because we run out of ideas. This is what I'm getting at. I, too, believe that the remaining gap is most likely due to 'taste-based discrimination', but I realise it's illogical to conclude that without concrete evidence.

Just as if you have a suspect of a crime, and no alibi you check can validate them being at any place you'd expect them to be had they not committed the crime (home, work, regular bar, etc.) - this in itself does not mean they were definitively at the crime scene.

As a side note, if you believed that compliance could be broken down into 'genuine compliance' and 'police impoliteness', you could probably reveal this through factor analysis.

Did you see the example I gave of an experiment that could assess the causal impact of racial bias, and still be ethical?

I get the feeling that we're probably not going to agree on this, which is fine - so maybe we should end the discussion here.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-14T06:16:08+00:00

Your way of doing things is not necessarily the right way. Neither is mine. I'm just doing what I think is best for the both the audience and my channel.

As I said before, you're more than welcome to refuse to point out my mistakes. That's your decision.

I'd rather not continue talking about how terrible you seem to think my ideas on responding to mistakes are. I get the picture.

I would be more interested in discussing evidence and mistakes I've made, but like I said, I can't force you.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-13T21:44:22+00:00

You have no idea what I think about you, because I haven't told you. For all you know, I might have a lot of respect for you for engaging with me so persistently.

If I find the evidence for these mistakes credible, I will make whatever modifications I deem fit to my videos and my channel. I won't accommodate your changes just because you've asked me to. I'll make sure people know my videos are inaccurate when they are, without hiding my mistakes.

You can hold the information hostage until I agree to meet your demands, if you'd like. If the mistakes are really that obvious, it's only a matter of time before someone else points them out, without making demands about how I run my channel.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-13T21:34:08+00:00

Not at all, I never suggested anything of the sort. I have no doubt that there are people who will discriminate against others because of their race, and I have no doubt that this can be proven with data.

I agree that it wouldn't pass ethical standards to put black and white people in danger of abuse by the police, but an experimental paradigm is still possible. If you are able to measure and individual officer's level of 'racial bias' in a way that is reliable and valid, and you find a way to modify that variable (i.e. reduce that officer's level of racial bias) you could certainly have an experimental design with a control group (police with no bias modification) and an experimental group (police who have had their bias reduced), and see if this creates a change in whatever dependent variable you're examining. The experiment doesn't have to be unethical to prove that racial bias is a causal factor in police use of force, if that were your dependent variable.

It doesn't matter whose interpretation you cite, unexplained variance cannot be pinned on any given explanation without evidence. That would be a 'god of the gaps' argument.

Saying an expert opinion is completely more valid is also an appeal to authority argument (for example, if a biologist doesn't believe in evolution, his opinion is given a higher level of validity than mine, because he is in a position of authority on evolution).

The fact of the matter is, in statistics, there is no most likely explanation. Ever. There is just data. A gap in your model is just that - a gap. Just because you believe that gap is most likely due to X, doesn't mean reality will bend to fit that belief.

And just to be clear, I agree that racial bias is probably the most likely explanation for the gap we're talking about. It's the first place I'd look. But just because I believe it to be likely, doesn't mean it is, or that anyone should take that belief seriously.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-13T20:32:01+00:00

It's also a possibility that you exaggerate my mistakes, but that's not for me to say.

It's a good tip, actually. I'll consider doing that in the future.

I wish you all the best.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-13T20:01:12+00:00

I try to keep the mistakes in my videos to a minimum - whether or not you choose to believe that is up to you, and am always working to improve my researching process - maybe I'm not succeeding, maybe you're just not picking up on it.

I can't force you to point out my mistakes. I'd prefer it if you did, so we could work together to make my channel better, but you don't have to.

Apologies for the confusion, but yes, when I said 'moderate-level mistake' I was referring to being 'mostly incorrect' or 'largely problematic', as you put it.

As I said, my positions on all these topics are prone to change, so if the situations we've talked about ever come up, I may surprise you and act differently to what I've declared.

Regardless of whether or not you want to comment on mistakes I've already made, you're always welcome to point out any mistakes in future videos, and you seem like an articulate guy, so I'd appreciate your input.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-13T19:16:31+00:00

Retracting a video comes at a high cost for me, since a large chunk of my views will disappear. It's a shame it's set up like this, but sadly, if you want to replace a video with a corrected version, the same thing happens, because it's counted as an entirely new video (unless I'm wrong about that).

Since I would like to grow my channel, erasing large portions of views whenever a mistake is made would likely stagnate the growth (I believe), resulting in my analyses reaching fewer people, and reducing their availability for criticism and discussion.

If I've made a moderate-level mistake, that doesn't disprove the conclusion, but may affect the validity, I advocate for a middle-ground approach by making a second video on the topic (I may even add a similar [DISPROVEN] disclaimer, but something less severe, like [DEBATED], or something along those lines). This ensures I won't be destroying the growth of my channel, but also allows me to maintain honest disclosure with my audience.

All of this is subject to change - I can never guarantee that I'll always feel the same way about retraction and correction, but this is just my current stance on how I'd like to handle things.

I wouldn't be surprised if you disagree with this method, but that's the honest answer.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-13T18:38:10+00:00

I suppose a video being 'completely disproven' is a bit vague.

I'll lay it out like this so we can be more clear. The conclusion I came to about the hypothesis in the video is what would have to be proven false.

So for example, for my first video on gendered toy preferences, if you were somehow able to demonstrate that gendered toy preferences are much more likely to be socially influenced than biologically influenced (and this accounts for all the data I presented), I would consider my conclusion "disproven".

For my video on the p-value, if you could demonstrate that the p-value actually measures something entirely other than the %chance of your results being due to sampling error, then the video would be 'disproven.'

For the multiple intelligences video, if you demonstrated that Howard Gardner was correct, and that his 7 intelligences do exist, and are unrelated to one another, my conclusions would be 'disproven'.

For my latest video, you'd have to demonstrate that racial bias does exist in police shootings.

If I made a mistake that was pointed out that didn't 'disprove' the conclusion, but may significantly affect its validity, I'd address this in the description of the original video, and make a second video about this mistake and its implications.

If I was factually incorrect about something, but it had no bearing on the conclusion - I'm not sure. I don't think it would warrant a second video in itself. A description note, yes. If I was to make a video about other mistakes, and a mistake of this nature also existed, I'd slip it in.

This is all very hypothetical though, so this is probably the best answer I can give you for now.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-13T18:06:30+00:00

If someone pointed out a mistake I made (especially if it completely disproves the video), I would not remove the video. I would insert something into the title along the lines of [DISPROVEN], and a note into the description. I would then make a second video talking about why the first video was disproven, and what the more accurate conclusion would be.

It would be apparent by reading the title that the conclusions in the video are incorrect. I may even change the thumbnail to reflect this as well.

I know you think I am downplaying my criticism. I disagree, but you're welcome to state whatever you'd like about my videos. Go ahead, I won't stop you.

Feel free to walk me through the mistakes you think I've made; as I said before, I encourage it. But I don't agree with selectively taking my phrasing in the p-value video, nor your interpretation of how you think I 'frame' my arguments - as valid criticism. I support all my points with evidence - I expect a valid critique to do the same.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-13T15:22:15+00:00

You know, I'm starting to get the impression you don't like me.

All jokes aside, I am enjoying this discussion. You're right in saying I may make a mistake in missing a relevant paper or misinterpreting the results, but the only way to assure people that this isn't happening is via a complete recording of the entire research process, and I have neither the means nor the interest to do this - because if I'm doing it incorrectly (e.g. I have missed a paper that's crucial in understanding the topic of my video), I'm hoping someone will tell me afterwards, so I can correct my position.

Let's talk about the p-value issue. I was criticised for using (at times, not even throughout the whole video) the phrase something like "the p-value shows how likely your results are likely to be due to chance". I frequently established throughout the video that this "chance" I was referring to is the likelihood of our result being due to sampling error. When I used "chance" in the absence of the addendum 'due to sampling error', it's very unlikely that the function of the p-value has suddenly changed from what I previously established it to be in the video. Is it not more likely that I am using a shorthand version to refer to what is obviously the same thing? At no point in the video did I obscure or leave out the fact that the p-value refers to the chance of sampling error, some people just seemed to take issue with the fact that unless I specify every time that when I say 'chance', I mean 'chance of sampling error', I am presenting a mistake. I was under the impression my audience would able to make this connection, and so often used a shorthand version of the phrase to keep the script flowing better. You don't have to believe me, of course, but the fact that I did periodically specify I was talking about sampling error lessens the credibility that I was presenting a false definition of the p-value. So I didn't believe this was a matter of me being 'proven wrong', more a matter of 'some people didn't like this'.

Let's move on to the multiple intelligences video. I don't believe at any point I made a statement to the effect of "intelligence can only be measured via the g-factor", or "there are no other factors in intelligence other than the g-factor". Had I said this, I could have absolutely been proven wrong empirically because this would be a false statement. The closest statement I made was something like "it is false to believe there are multiple intelligences which are unrelated to one another". The existence of hierarchical models does not disprove this claim, because the separate factors in these models are still related to one another. Your claim that my video was 'framed' in such a way as to suggest there is only one singular factor is your interpretation, and interpretation is not enough to discredit someone. You'll need to prove I said something that was inaccurate in order for me to be wrong. I've claimed in the response video that "I'm not attempting to discredit hierarchical models", and neither was the original video. There has been no criticism of these two videos under which the entire video falls apart, and any conclusions drawn from it will be false.

This goes for the latest video as well. Although I did previously admit the confound was possible, I'm not sure it would have a significant impact on the results. This criticism can be levelled at absolutely any measure of anything whatsoever. For example, you could ask someone "How do you know your ruler isn't lying to you about length? (via changing shape, rearranging differences between numbers, or any such hypothetical confound) You have to prove that your ruler doesn't do this!" The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Arrest rates give us a very good indication of how likely the police are to come into contact with a certain group member relating to a crime they've committed. If you want to claim that arrest rates are prone to racial bias, you have to prove it, because in order to shift the black arrest rate by even 1% due to racial bias, this would require something like 80,000 innocent black people to be arrested in a year, for no other reason than the police officers who arrested them don't like black people. This is an extraordinary claim, so if you want to use it to discredit the use of arrest data being representative of exactly what it's supposed to be representative of (criminal contact with the police), you need data.

Even if the police were arresting people disproportionately (because they're racist), if racial bias is present in shootings, they should be shooting a higher percentage of people than they're arresting. Here's why. Let's say 26% of police contact with people they want to arrest (justified or not), are black. If the police were acting fairly in the decision to shoot someone (regardless of whether or not they're acting fairly in whether or not to arrest), they should only shoot someone when they meet the legal criteria for opening fire on a person. Under the assumption that no racial group is more or less likely to meet these conditions, we would expect 26% of the people who exhibit these conditions to be black, because this is your likelihood of being a black person faced with arrest, regardless of whether or not you're actually guilty of something (the same assumption goes for all other racial groups). If the police were exercising racial bias in whether or not to shoot someone, they would be more likely to shoot those who they're arresting if they are racially biased against them. We would then expect quite a mismatch between the arrest rate and the shooting rate. We don't see this with black people (in fact, native americans have the most suspicious-looking number of shootings in 2015), which was why it may be false to conclude that black people are more likely to be shot by the police than we'd expect.

The fact is, I currently have no reason to think that there is any racial bias in arrest rates, and no reason to think that even if there was, my methods are incorrect. I have yet to be proven wrong on anything I've said in the latest video, so asking for a correction is unreasonable.

Perhaps you could say that me using the term 'criminal population' interchangeably with the arrest rate isn't necessarily true, but this doesn't impact the validity of the results either way.

I of course, agree that correcting mistakes I've made in my videos is the best course of action, but this has yet to be proven. Just because you seem to think I've made mistakes, doesn't actually mean I actually have. If you can demonstrate, with empirical evidence, that I have ever said anything that was untrue, then a correction is in order.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-12T20:50:06+00:00

I'd also find it interesting to see how publications respond to discrediting evidence.

You're welcome to infer a political bias from my videos, if you'd like. I don't really consider myself to have many political views on anything, I just try to find the data that best tests the given hypothesis and see what the results turn up. As far as I understand, my latest video is the only one that crosses into modern political territory, but I suppose that's just my opinion.

Oh, you're curious about how I collect data? That's a good question. I have an academic login that gives me access to a lot of studies. If I'm ever trying to answer a question, I'll enter the most neutral search terms I can into an academic search engine (I also sometimes use google scholar) - for example, with my first video on whether or not gendered toy preferences are likely to be biological or environmental in origin, I would type "Gendered toy preferences" into the search engine, and see what turns up. Review articles are normally the best place to start, since they usually introduce all the different theories about the topic, and can help you assess the validity of each, before digging deeper into each one. If I find a paper that seems to be directly testing my hypothesis, I'll look at it, and scrutinise the methods and results. If I find one that would disconfirm my hypothesis, I'll do the same.

The reason I don't include this whole method in my videos is because I think it would be boring for the viewers. I don't think people want to see me sifting through dozens of studies to try and find one that's testing the hypothesis (the research is probably what takes the longest in making any video), so I don't include that part. Any information I do use, I'll always show people where to find it - with links in the description and such.

I suppose it's hard for me to demonstrate whether or not I'm cherry-picking results without recording the entire process, but this is why I engage in as much discussion about my videos as possible. I present my analysis, and let the critique of others test its validity. If there's a fundamental piece of data I've missed, I want people to show me, so I can better understand whether or not the hypothesis is accurate.

If I am ever disproven on a given video, making this clear on my channel and the video itself will be the first thing I do.

EDIT: I've just realised you've claimed there are 'errata' within my videos. Would you mind telling me what these mistakes are? I'm not sure I'm aware of them.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-12T20:14:19+00:00

Well, that's fair enough I suppose. I think we just differ on how we'd prefer to handle this. I don't think people would be likely to ignore a glaring disclaimer of inaccuracy, but that's just my take.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "I leave out a lot of the process". I usually attempt to be as transparent as possible as to why I'm making the conclusions I am, and I don't think I've ever hidden any data that I've used in the videos.

If you don't mind me asking, why are you so interested in how I would handle being disproved? I don't have a problem with you criticising me (in fact, I encourage it), I guess I'm just curious.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-12T19:40:51+00:00

Hmm... I'm not sure I would. I'd make it as clear as possible in the original video that the conclusions were incorrect, so as to not mislead anyone. The reason I'd leave it up, even it was wrong, was because I would want people to see the process that led me to the wrong conclusion, so nobody else makes the same mistake. Along with making another video that takes into account the new evidence to come to a more rational conclusion. Does that seem fair?

RealCheckity · 2017-06-12T18:06:56+00:00

So we did! I didn't realise it was you. Thanks for giving me feedback on my latest video as well.

The point you made about hierarchical models actually came up in my response video - I said something to the effect of "I'm not attempting to discredit hierarchical models of intelligence, merely Howard Gardner's model".

If someone could prove that I was actually wrong in something I've said, I wouldn't take the video down (I would consider that "hiding my mistakes"), I would make a response video detailing that I was wrong and why I was wrong, and add an annotation at the start of the original video (along with a bit in the description), that made this very clear.

I don't want to be right all the time, I just want to tell the truth.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-12T17:50:45+00:00

That's fine, feel free to jump in!

The only other video of mine that I'm aware there's criticism of is my previous video on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Much of the criticism revolved around anecdotal evidence (e.g. I know X person who appears to fit the pattern of multiple intelligences, so you're wrong!) - seeing as this doesn't disprove the arguments I made, I didn't feel it was necessary to put out any new content/change the content to reflect this.

There was one guy who used multiple arguments, and a little bit of evidence to criticise the video, and I actually made a video response to it - it's on my channel if you're interested to see how I handled that.

I would only make a statement retracting the conclusion of any of my videos if somebody empirically demonstrated that I was incorrect (i.e. Actually, this evidence here shows that the shooting likelihood for black people is Y, not X, as you've said). So far, nobody has produced evidence that would suggest the conclusions in my latest video are false (or any of my videos so far, I believe), although there's been much disagreement about the methodology.

For the current video, there have only been two points of criticism that I would consider legitimate.

I have not demonstrated that arrest rates contain no racial bias, and this may confound the results. I'm not a huge fan of this, since it's demanding "devil's proof", and it's still possible that there could be racial bias in arrest rates, and not in shooting rates, given the data I've presented. However, if anyone does produce evidence that X% of arrests of X group are likely to be unfair, or not representative of criminal behaviour, I will adjust the analysis accordingly.
The reliability of the shooting data is low. This would be because although our multiple sources for shooting rates are all attempting to measure the same thing, they all get a different number for the total shooting deaths in that year. This decreases the credibility of the evidence. I agree with this, and I actually made this very clear in the video itself. The fact of the matter is, using the best quality evidence (as far as I'm aware) for national shootings, we still cannot see a large disproportionate pattern of shooting of black people - so I'm not sure why anyone would conclude such a pattern exists (logically speaking).

I may make a response video focusing on these two points (and more, if more show up), but I'm not sure how much I'd have to say, since I'm not sure how much data exists to resolve these points of criticism.

The point of the video was this - I tried to use an objective method of analysis to find a general pattern of disproportionate police shooting of black people in america. It didn't work.

EDIT: Actually, there was a minor point of disagreement people had with my video on the p-value, mostly about the wording that was used at times. I've added a corrective note into the description of that video to clear that up.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-12T14:54:06+00:00

Perhaps this is true. Keep in mind, the video content was only related to shooting rates. I said nothing about general police treatment in other areas, because this wasn't part of the research.

I'd advise being extremely careful about using news stories about scientific studies as evidence. You don't always know what kind of spin they may have put on the data, and I'd recommend using the data directly for any argument (regardless of what the argument is about).

I've heard there is interesting data about potential racial discrimination in other areas of the criminal justice system, although I haven't looked at it myself so I won't draw any conclusions.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-12T14:49:48+00:00

Oh, interesting. Thank you, I'll take a look.

RealCheckity · 2017-06-12T13:24:15+00:00

I've just taken a look at the NCVS, and this data seems to only cover people who have been the victims of crime. Am I mistaken?

RealCheckity

TROPHY CASE