From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Sep 27 1999 - 18:53:48 MDT
David Lubkin wrote:
>
> And what percentage of Americans truly understand that statistically valid results
> say nothing about how an individual should be treated?
I think this is *the* key question. After all, one can imagine shooting
90% of all Unitarians in such a way that the new "statistical curve"
describing the remaining populatio n's IQs is one standard deviation to
the left. But have any individuals changed? Obviously not. If we
shoot the ones with low IQs instead, so that curve shifts to the right,
do the remaining Unitarians become smarter? Again, no.
That's why I try (when dealing with transhumanist audiences, of course)
to say "gaussian human" rather than "normal human" or "average human" -
to remind myself, and the audience, that the average human can lie
anywhere on the curve.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way
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