any ideas

[Daveyboy]

Can anybody make any sense of this???

 

 

 

A thought experiment illustrates this. Imagine a company, United Differences (UD), operating in a community that is 25 percent black and 75 percent white and 5 percent homosexual, 95 percent heterosexual. Unknown to UD and the community is the fact that only 2 percent of the blacks are homosexual, whereas 6 percent of the whites are. (The numbers are fictitious and chosen for illustration only.) Making a concerted attempt to assemble a work force of 1,000 that "fairly" reflects the community, the company hires 750 whites and 250 blacks.

 

However, just five of the blacks (or 2 percent) would be homosexual, whereas 45 of the whites (or 6 percent) would be (totaling 50, 5 percent of all workers). Despite these efforts, the company could still be accused by its black employees of being homophobic since only 2 percent of the black employees (five of 250) would be homosexual, not the community-wide 5 percent. The company's homosexual employees could likewise claim that the company was racist since only 10 percent of their members (five of 50) would be black, not the community-wide 25 percent. White heterosexuals would certainly make similar complaints.

[YT2095]

they either want the job or they don`t. if it`s a fair representation of the public mass as a whole, tell them to quit b!tching or get out. it`s that simple

[Daveyboy]

Yeah i know that, but does it hold up mathematically just doesn't add up to me

[MandrakeRoot]

I think the trick behind it is confusing conditional probability with probability. In this example the probability of being gay knowing you are black is not the same as when you are white. 5% of the workforce hired is gay which reflect the community proportion.

 

=> the company constituted its workforce using conditional probabilities;

The complaints are done not using the non-conditional probablities. Hence the difference.

 

Ergo the complaints are not grounded. What kind of exercise is this anyway ?

 

Mandrake

[Daveyboy]

Its something my lecturer gave to the class. Just a brainteaser for us i guess. cheers

[MandrakeRoot]

ah ok then.

 

Mandrake