Emperor Biden has announced that race and sex
are the determining factors in his upcoming SCOTUS nomination.
Can other prospective candidates, who don't
meet the stated criteria, bring a class action suit,
under the 1964 Civil Rights Act? How would that play out?
Suppose such a suit were filed, then the Senate
confirms Biden's choice, she's seated, and then a lower
federal court rules in favor of the plaintiffs?
Do you think that selecting a Supreme Court Justice falls under
the same rules as hiring a factory worker? Besides, there have
been many instances of minorities being given a preference in
order to make up for past discrimination, sometimes court ordered.
Do you think there really is any basis for contesting Emperor
Biden's decision?
Rick C <[email protected]> wrote:
Do you think that selecting a Supreme Court Justice falls under
the same rules as hiring a factory worker? ...
Congress has exempted itself from a number of laws, such as
prohibitions against insider trading and against discrimination in the >workplace. ...
It appears that Stuart O. Bronstein <[email protected]> said:
Rick C <[email protected]> wrote:
Do you think that selecting a Supreme Court Justice falls underCongress has exempted itself from a number of laws, such as
the same rules as hiring a factory worker? ...
prohibitions against insider trading and against discrimination in the >workplace. ...
The Constitution says that the President "shall nominate, and by and
with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors,
other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and
all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not
herein otherwise provided for"
The President can nominate anyone he wants, and the Senate can confirm
or reject those appointments. I suppose the Senate could make rules
about what nominations it would consider, but there's no way it could
bind itself to follow those rules, so why bother? As we found in 2016
and 2020, they can and will change the rules to fit political whims.
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious
test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic,
even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also
been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be Black.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments.
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious
test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic,
even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also
been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone
correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be Black.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments.
Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the general population of the country.
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious
test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic,
even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also
been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone
correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be Black.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments.
Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the general population of the country.What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians?
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same
as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate
degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or
second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious
test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic,
even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also
been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone
correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be
Black.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments.
Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding
religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the >>general population of the country.
What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians?
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same
as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate
degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or
second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
I'm not sure that is accurate. Consider this. An arbitrarily large population (sufficiently close to infinite in size) has 20% blue and the
rest orange. If you draw 9 samples from that population, what are the chances of any 6 being blue? Well, someone else can do the math, but I
know it is below 1%.
However, Supreme court justices are not picked from the general public. They are lawyers and generally they are federal judges. So what is
the percentage of federal judges that are catholic? This number will hugely skew the probability.
"John Levine" wrote in message news:su9g9n$2au5$[email protected]...
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religiousBefore claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding >>religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the >>general population of the country.
test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic, >>> even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also
been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone
correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be >>> Black.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments. >>
What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians?
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same
as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate
degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or
second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
But given such a small sample size - nine people - you can't really draw inferences from the population as a whole or even the population of judges
in general.
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:
Right.I'm not sure that is accurate. Consider this. An arbitrarily large population (sufficiently close to infinite in size) has 20% blue and theTwo or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
rest orange. If you draw 9 samples from that population, what are the chances of any 6 being blue? Well, someone else can do the math, but I
know it is below 1%.
However, Supreme court justices are not picked from the general public. They are lawyers and generally they are federal judges. So what isI cannot find any hard numbers but I find nothing to suggest that it's different from the overall population.
the percentage of federal judges that are catholic? This number will hugely skew the probability.
The numbers for income over $100K and for graduate degrees, which should be indicators that someone is a lawyer,
are similar to the overall population.
I hope I don't have to spell out *why* Republican presidents have packed the court with Catholics.
On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 9:41:21 AM UTC-5, Rick wrote:someone else can do the math, but I know it is below 1%. So a sample set of 9 from a large population is sufficiently large to determine if 2/3rds of the selection set being all from a 20% subgroup, is likely to happen by chance. The typical test of
"John Levine" wrote in message news:su9g9n$2au5$[email protected]...
But given such a small sample size - nine people - you can't really draw
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious >>>>> test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic, >>>>> even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also >>>>> been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone >>>>> correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be >>>>> Black.Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments. >>>>
religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the >>>> general population of the country.
What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians?
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same
as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate
degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or
second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
inferences from the population as a whole or even the population of judges >> in general.
I'm not sure that is accurate. Consider this. An arbitrarily large population (sufficiently close to infinite in size) has 20% blue and the rest orange. If you draw 9 samples from that population, what are the chances of any 6 being blue? Well,
However, Supreme court justices are not picked from the general public. They are lawyers and generally they are federal judges. So what is the percentage of federal judges that are catholic? This number will hugely skew the probability.
I hope I don't have to spell out *why* Republican presidents have packed the court with Catholics.
To make that case you would need to show Republicans nominated the Catholic members. Is that the case? I've never studied the religious
associations of the Supreme Court justices.
On 2/13/2022 10:41 AM, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 9:41:21 AM UTC-5, Rick wrote:
"John Levine" wrote in message news:su9g9n$2au5$[email protected]...
But given such a small sample size - nine people - you can't really draw >>> inferences from the population as a whole or even the population of
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious >>>>>> test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are
Catholic,
even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also >>>>>> been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone >>>>>> correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would >>>>>> be
Black.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial
appointments.
Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding
religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not >>>>> the
general population of the country.
What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians? >>>>
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same
as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate
degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or
second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
judges
in general.
I'm not sure that is accurate. Consider this. An arbitrarily large
population (sufficiently close to infinite in size) has 20% blue and the
rest orange. If you draw 9 samples from that population, what are the
chances of any 6 being blue? Well, someone else can do the math, but I
know it is below 1%. So a sample set of 9 from a large population is
sufficiently large to determine if 2/3rds of the selection set being all
from a 20% subgroup, is likely to happen by chance. The typical test of
likelihood uses 95% as a threshold and we are above 99% for this to be
unlikely.
However, Supreme court justices are not picked from the general public.
They are lawyers and generally they are federal judges. So what is the
percentage of federal judges that are catholic? This number will hugely
skew the probability.
Actually, the "universe" you should be looking in is "Conservative"
judges -- and more specificaly, judges who oppose abortion. That has been
the single main thrust of the Republican Party and Republican Presidents
ever since the late 1970s.
So, of jurists who oppose abortion and Roe v. Wade, what percentage are
Roman Catholic? Or in more statistically important terms, what are the >chances that 6 Justices chosen from that set will be RC?
Also note that Supreme Court Justices are not required to have been judges. >Earl Warren was Governor of California before Eisenhower appointed him. I >answered a Quora question about SC Justices a few days ago, and easily
found several Justices with no judicial experience.
Right - and among current justices I don't believe Elena Kagan was ever a judge. Neither was the most recent Chief Justice, William Rehnquist.
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious
test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic,
even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also
been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone
correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be Black.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments.
Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the general population of the country.
What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians?
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same
as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate
degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or
second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 9:41:21 AM UTC-5, Rick wrote:someone else can do the math, but I know it is below 1%. So a sample set of 9 from a large population is sufficiently large to determine if 2/3rds of the selection set being all from a 20% subgroup, is likely to happen by chance. The typical test of
"John Levine" wrote in message news:su9g9n$2au5$[email protected]...
But given such a small sample size - nine people - you can't really draw
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious >>>>> test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic, >>>>> even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also >>>>> been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone >>>>> correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be >>>>> Black.Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments. >>>>
religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the >>>> general population of the country.
What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians?
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same
as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate
degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or
second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
inferences from the population as a whole or even the population of judges >> in general.
I'm not sure that is accurate. Consider this. An arbitrarily large population (sufficiently close to infinite in size) has 20% blue and the rest orange. If you draw 9 samples from that population, what are the chances of any 6 being blue? Well,
However, Supreme court justices are not picked from the general public. They are lawyers and generally they are federal judges. So what is the percentage of federal judges that are catholic? This number will hugely skew the probability.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
For that matter, how many Catholic presidents have we had? Well, there
was JFK and then there's Biden and also.....ummm....wasn't Catholic the >religion of.....Well, I'll be. There's only been TWO Catholic
presidents. Looks like there's some discrimination going on here as
well. We should sue to have more Catholic presidents elected!!!!
If there's only nine judges, it doesn't take much to skew the
numbers. And for a long time, the court was mainly or all Protestant but
we didn't get up in arms then.
Aside from the nonsense of this assertion, who are the "other prospective >candidates"? You don't even need a law degree to be a Supreme Court >justice, much less a sitting judge, so I guess the "other prospective >candidates" could include just about anyone and everyone. [is there an age >requirement for a justice? Could biden propose, say, a 25-year-old? A >15-year-old?]. ...
Also note that Supreme Court Justices are not required to have been
judges. Earl Warren was Governor of California before Eisenhower
appointed him. I answered a Quora question about SC Justices a few days
ago, and easily found several Justices with no judicial experience.
On 2/13/2022 12:45 AM, John Levine wrote:
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religiousBefore claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the general population of the country.
test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic, >>> even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also
been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone
correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be Black.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments. >>
What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians?
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same
as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate
degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or
second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/For that matter, how many Catholic presidents have we had? Well, there
was JFK and then there's Biden and also.....ummm....wasn't Catholic the religion of.....Well, I'll be. There's only been TWO Catholic
presidents. Looks like there's some discrimination going on here as
well. We should sue to have more Catholic presidents elected!!!!
In case it wasn't obvious from the wording, saying "we only have X
that's in population Y" when X is a really low number to begin with
isn't really a good test, either way, to say if there's discrimination
at play. If there's only nine judges, it doesn't take much to skew the numbers. And for a long time, the court was mainly or all Protestant but
we didn't get up in arms then.
If you took a deck of cards and shuffled them and dealt out nine cards,
it wouldn't be super-surprising to see six hearts in the nine (unusual?
Yes. Super-surprising? No. I wouldn't shoot the dealer over it.) But if
you dealt out 9,000,000 cards and had 6,000,000 hearts, I'd start
looking really closely to see if there was some cheating going on.
And about 1/4 (actually about 23%) of the US is Catholic, just like 25%
of the cards are hearts so that's why I used playing cards as a reference.
On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 10:26:50 AM UTC-5, Mike Anderson wrote:someone else can do the math, but I know it is below 1%. So a sample set of 9 from a large population is sufficiently large to determine if 2/3rds of the selection set being all from a 20% subgroup, is likely to happen by chance. The typical test of
On 2/13/2022 1:41 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 9:41:21 AM UTC-5, Rick wrote:
"John Levine" wrote in message news:su9g9n$2au5$[email protected]...
But given such a small sample size - nine people - you can't really draw >>>> inferences from the population as a whole or even the population of judges >>>> in general.
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious >>>>>>> test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic, >>>>>>> even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also >>>>>>> been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone >>>>>>> correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be >>>>>>> Black.Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered >>>>>>> devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments. >>>>>>
religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the >>>>>> general population of the country.
What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians? >>>>>
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same >>>>> as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate >>>>> degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or
second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
I'm not sure that is accurate. Consider this. An arbitrarily large population (sufficiently close to infinite in size) has 20% blue and the rest orange. If you draw 9 samples from that population, what are the chances of any 6 being blue? Well,
There are no future measurements. We know the composition of the general public. This is not much different from poker hand probabilities other than that the poker hands have a finite deck size and we are working with a group size that can beI tend to agree that there was some cherry-picking of judges (when you
However, Supreme court justices are not picked from the general public. They are lawyers and generally they are federal judges. So what is the percentage of federal judges that are catholic? This number will hugely skew the probability.
have three new ones in a single four-year presidential term, you can
easily skew the results like that) but that being said....
Your above analysis of the odds and using that to say something is wrong
here is a complete misuse/misunderstanding of probability and chance.
Confidence levels of 95% or 99% are basically a measure of how confident
you are that future measurements will lie within the confidence
interval. But it doesn't mean that ALL data must lie within that range.
It's simply a way of saying "this data lies outside of the 95% interval
and we should look at it much closer to make sure it's valid."
I think you have botched your explanation. What you are talking about is not related to the problem at hand. We are trying to determine the probability of the observed result given the population the sample was drawn from. Not the same thing at all.
run into an old friend and spent the night in town getting very drunk and coming home in the early hours of the morning... for the tenth time this month! Does that make it more understandable?If you dealt out a bridge hand and you had 2D, 3D, 4H, 6S, 6C, 6D, 8H,
9D, 10H, 10S, JH, QH and AD, is that more or less likely than if you
dealt it out and had 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H, 6H, 7H, 8H, 9H, 10H, JH, QH, KH and
AH?
Answer: BOTH have a probability of 1:635,013,559,600 or about a
0.000000000000157% chance of happening. But both can happen and if the
first happened, you wouldn't even think twice about it. Even if the
probability of something happening is
0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%, it doesn't
mean it CAN'T happen purely by chance. It just means "don't bet your
retirement on it" and if you DID see it happen, you might want to check
things very carefully to see if there was any error or cheating.
Flipping a coin 10 times and getting HHHHHTTTTT is just as likely as
getting HTTHTHHTHT (but it's NOT as likely as "getting five heads and
five tails where there are no more than two flips in a row that were the
same" as there's many more ways to get such a sequence than the one I
showed here.)
Getting one grouping of judges that are heavily Catholic purely at
random is possible, even if unlikely, and the mere fact that the
probability is low doesn't mean there was undue influences that caused
that result.
Hmmmm... I think you fail to understand probability. If the probability is sufficiently low, it can be considered to be impossible on a practical level and other explanations can be considered. Yes, there is a possibility that your wife really did
One of the things that bugs me about applying probability is that when there are many, many samples taken, unlikely events can't be dismissed as "unlikely". Such as people accused of crimes, unlikely alibis are discarded out of hand. A lot of peopleare accused of crimes and some percentage of those alibis are valid, even if unlikely, because of the large number of samples being taken. Just like getting heads 6 times in a row. If you flip the coins long enough, you are most "likely" going to see
Turns out the likelihood of 6 Catholic Supreme Court justices of 9 from a 23% Catholic population is 0.57% or about 1 in 200. Yeah, in politics that is low enough to cast suspicion. However, the flaw is that judges are not typically picked from thegeneral population, but from other federal benches. So the discrimination may have happened previously at lower levels. Without knowledge of the makeup of the actual population, we can't say.
On 2/20/2022 9:21 PM, Rick C wrote:someone else can do the math, but I know it is below 1%. So a sample set of 9 from a large population is sufficiently large to determine if 2/3rds of the selection set being all from a 20% subgroup, is likely to happen by chance. The typical test of
On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 10:26:50 AM UTC-5, Mike Anderson wrote:
On 2/13/2022 1:41 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 9:41:21 AM UTC-5, Rick wrote:
"John Levine" wrote in message news:su9g9n$2au5$[email protected]... >>>>>
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:But given such a small sample size - nine people - you can't really draw >>>> inferences from the population as a whole or even the population of judges
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious >>>>>>> test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic,
even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also >>>>>>> been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone >>>>>>> correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be
Black.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered >>>>>>> devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments.
Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding >>>>>> religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the
general population of the country.
What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians? >>>>>
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same >>>>> as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate >>>>> degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or >>>>> second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
in general.
I'm not sure that is accurate. Consider this. An arbitrarily large population (sufficiently close to infinite in size) has 20% blue and the rest orange. If you draw 9 samples from that population, what are the chances of any 6 being blue? Well,
There are no future measurements. We know the composition of the general public. This is not much different from poker hand probabilities other than that the poker hands have a finite deck size and we are working with a group size that can be consideredI tend to agree that there was some cherry-picking of judges (when you
However, Supreme court justices are not picked from the general public. They are lawyers and generally they are federal judges. So what is the percentage of federal judges that are catholic? This number will hugely skew the probability.
have three new ones in a single four-year presidential term, you can
easily skew the results like that) but that being said....
Your above analysis of the odds and using that to say something is wrong >> here is a complete misuse/misunderstanding of probability and chance.
Confidence levels of 95% or 99% are basically a measure of how confident >> you are that future measurements will lie within the confidence
interval. But it doesn't mean that ALL data must lie within that range.
It's simply a way of saying "this data lies outside of the 95% interval
and we should look at it much closer to make sure it's valid."
I think you have botched your explanation. What you are talking about is not related to the problem at hand. We are trying to determine the probability of the observed result given the population the sample was drawn from. Not the same thing at all.
It doesn't matter if it's future or past or present measurements. A "confidence level" is simply that; "How confident can you be that any
given measurement is not erroneous?"
If the confidence factor of 99% indicates that a particular measurement should be between 100 and 110 and you measure something that's 82, you
look long and hard to try and determine if that measurement was flawed
and should be thrown out or was it simply one that "beat the odds?"
Chances are that it WAS in error but, again, that's "chances are."
run into an old friend and spent the night in town getting very drunk and coming home in the early hours of the morning... for the tenth time this month! Does that make it more understandable?If you dealt out a bridge hand and you had 2D, 3D, 4H, 6S, 6C, 6D, 8H,
9D, 10H, 10S, JH, QH and AD, is that more or less likely than if you
dealt it out and had 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H, 6H, 7H, 8H, 9H, 10H, JH, QH, KH and >> AH?
Answer: BOTH have a probability of 1:635,013,559,600 or about a
0.000000000000157% chance of happening. But both can happen and if the
first happened, you wouldn't even think twice about it. Even if the
probability of something happening is
0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%, it doesn't
mean it CAN'T happen purely by chance. It just means "don't bet your
retirement on it" and if you DID see it happen, you might want to check
things very carefully to see if there was any error or cheating.
Flipping a coin 10 times and getting HHHHHTTTTT is just as likely as
getting HTTHTHHTHT (but it's NOT as likely as "getting five heads and
five tails where there are no more than two flips in a row that were the >> same" as there's many more ways to get such a sequence than the one I
showed here.)
Getting one grouping of judges that are heavily Catholic purely at
random is possible, even if unlikely, and the mere fact that the
probability is low doesn't mean there was undue influences that caused
that result.
Hmmmm... I think you fail to understand probability. If the probability is sufficiently low, it can be considered to be impossible on a practical level and other explanations can be considered. Yes, there is a possibility that your wife really did
are accused of crimes and some percentage of those alibis are valid, even if unlikely, because of the large number of samples being taken. Just like getting heads 6 times in a row. If you flip the coins long enough, you are most "likely" going to seeOne of the things that bugs me about applying probability is that when there are many, many samples taken, unlikely events can't be dismissed as "unlikely". Such as people accused of crimes, unlikely alibis are discarded out of hand. A lot of people
general population, but from other federal benches. So the discrimination may have happened previously at lower levels. Without knowledge of the makeup of the actual population, we can't say.Turns out the likelihood of 6 Catholic Supreme Court justices of 9 from a 23% Catholic population is 0.57% or about 1 in 200. Yeah, in politics that is low enough to cast suspicion. However, the flaw is that judges are not typically picked from the
No, I understand it just fine and yes, when we see anomalous results, we
look long and hard to see if it was caused by improper testing,
analysis, data cherry-picking, fraud, etc. I was simply pointing out
even the extremely unlikely CAN happen and that "improbable" is not the
same as "impossible."
But your point about how there could have been discrimination at lower
levels is very valid. If we sampled 10,000 judges at all levels (there's close to 2,000 just in federal courts) and found the same skewing of religious practices, then it shows the odds are much greater that
there's something else going on. If you flipped the coin 10 times and
got 7 heads, that's not a very good sample and it could have easily
happened by chance. If you flipped the coin 10,000,000,000 times and got 7,000,000,000 heads (without regard to "in a row") then there's almost certainly some sort of bias with the coin.
The fewer the number of samples, the less you can talk about "was it
simple chance or was it bias?" and that's what I was addressing was that small sample sizes give wider ranges for confidence values and less firm evidence for bias. If you flipped a coin once, you can't even calculate
a confidence value. If you flipped it one trillion times, the 99%
confidence range becomes extremely narrow and it's centered on 500 billion.
On Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at 1:49:19 PM UTC-5, Mike Anderson wrote:
If the confidence factor of 99% indicates that a particular measurement
should be between 100 and 110 and you measure something that's 82, you
look long and hard to try and determine if that measurement was flawed
and should be thrown out or was it simply one that "beat the odds?"
Chances are that it WAS in error but, again, that's "chances are."
We know for certain that the measurement is correct, 6 Catholics out of 9 on the Supreme Court. We know for certain the general public is 23% Catholic, assuming some definition of Catholic. So what are you trying to say?
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments.
Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding
religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the general population of the country.
Catholic. Do you concur?The fewer the number of samples, the less you can talk about "was it
simple chance or was it bias?" and that's what I was addressing was that
small sample sizes give wider ranges for confidence values and less firm
evidence for bias. If you flipped a coin once, you can't even calculate
a confidence value. If you flipped it one trillion times, the 99%
confidence range becomes extremely narrow and it's centered on 500 billion.
How do you apply any of this to the matter at hand? I believe I came up with a number, using the binomial distribution, of 0.57% likelihood of 6 justices being Catholic with a random selection (with regards to religion) from a population that was 23%
On 3/3/2022 12:38 AM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at 1:49:19 PM UTC-5, Mike Anderson wrote:
If the confidence factor of 99% indicates that a particular measurement
should be between 100 and 110 and you measure something that's 82, you
look long and hard to try and determine if that measurement was flawed
and should be thrown out or was it simply one that "beat the odds?"
Chances are that it WAS in error but, again, that's "chances are."
We know for certain that the measurement is correct, 6 Catholics out of 9 on the Supreme Court. We know for certain the general public is 23% Catholic, assuming some definition of Catholic. So what are you trying to say?What am I SAYING? (I'm not TRYING to say anything. I AM saying that "The reason WHY there's such a difference in the percentage of the judges who
are Catholic vs the number of people in the general population MAY be
simply due to chance."
Is it likely? No. Is is POSSIBLE? Yes.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments.
Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regardingYour comments: "What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians?" and "Two or three Catholic justices would not be
religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the general population of the country.
surprising. But six?"
Yes, it's a surprising result. Does that mean it's biased? Not
necessarily and we can't tell without more data.
Catholic. Do you concur?The fewer the number of samples, the less you can talk about "was it
simple chance or was it bias?" and that's what I was addressing was that >> small sample sizes give wider ranges for confidence values and less firm >> evidence for bias. If you flipped a coin once, you can't even calculate
a confidence value. If you flipped it one trillion times, the 99%
confidence range becomes extremely narrow and it's centered on 500 billion.
How do you apply any of this to the matter at hand? I believe I came up with a number, using the binomial distribution, of 0.57% likelihood of 6 justices being Catholic with a random selection (with regards to religion) from a population that was 23%
I wasn't arguing what the probability of it happening was. I was saying
that any statement that amounts to "this has an extremely low
probability, thus it must be biased" is fallacious.
Do I THINK there's bias? Probably so. But we've also had 20 presidents
since 1902. Of those, there's been two Catholics. So that's only 10% of
them that are Catholic vs 1/4 of the general population. Is there bias
there? Probably not. And yes, I realize that 10% and 25% are a lot
closer than 66% and 25% and thus the odds for a 10-25 are higher than
the odds for a 66-25 so less likely to have a bias. But the point is
that no matter if the odds of something happening are 1:2 or 1:2
trillion, SIMPLY looking at the odds and the actual result are not
enough to prove bias (nor can you rule out bias, either.)
On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 12:58:27 AM UTC-5, Mike Anderson wrote:
On 2/13/2022 12:45 AM, John Levine wrote:
According to Rick C <[email protected]>:For that matter, how many Catholic presidents have we had? Well, there
It's been quite clear that in recent years there has been a religious >>>>> test for court nominees: six of the current nine justices are Catholic, >>>>> even though only about 20% of the country is Catholic. There has also >>>>> been a racial test: in 1991 when Thurgood Marshall retired, everyone >>>>> correctly assumed the successor that George HW Bush nominated would be Black.Before claiming a bias regarding Supreme Court nominees regarding religion, consider the population nominees are drawn from. It is not the general population of the country.
So some of us are a wee bit sceptical about this newly discovered
devotion to race and gender blind meritocracy in judicial appointments. >>>>
What population do you believe is 2/3 Catholic? Lawyers? Policiticians?
Pew says that the income distribution of Catholics is about the same
as for the country as a whole. About 9% of Catholics have a graduate
degree (such as a law degree) compared to 11% of the country as a
whole, not surprising for a church where many members are first or
second generation immigrants.
Two or three Catholic justices would not be surprising. But six?
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
was JFK and then there's Biden and also.....ummm....wasn't Catholic the
religion of.....Well, I'll be. There's only been TWO Catholic
presidents. Looks like there's some discrimination going on here as
well. We should sue to have more Catholic presidents elected!!!!
In case it wasn't obvious from the wording, saying "we only have X
that's in population Y" when X is a really low number to begin with
isn't really a good test, either way, to say if there's discrimination
at play. If there's only nine judges, it doesn't take much to skew the
numbers. And for a long time, the court was mainly or all Protestant but
we didn't get up in arms then.
If you took a deck of cards and shuffled them and dealt out nine cards,
it wouldn't be super-surprising to see six hearts in the nine (unusual?
Yes. Super-surprising? No. I wouldn't shoot the dealer over it.) But if
you dealt out 9,000,000 cards and had 6,000,000 hearts, I'd start
looking really closely to see if there was some cheating going on.
And about 1/4 (actually about 23%) of the US is Catholic, just like 25%
of the cards are hearts so that's why I used playing cards as a reference.
But you don't give any actual references to the numbers. What are the odds of 6 hearts out of 9 cards? Inquiring minds want to know.
I dug around and it seems the binomial distribution is the formula for this and I get 0.57% chance of 6 Supreme Court justices being Catholic when drawn from a population with 23% are Catholic.
n 9
p 23.0%
x 6
1-p 77.0%
(p)x 0.015%
(1-p)(n-x) 45.7%
nCx 84
P(x) 0.57%
Check my work.
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