Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Yes, if your (statistical) population is all the elements in the universe that would be the case. If your target population is all the metal deposits or all humans in the world you would come to different conclusions.


That's exactly right - I'm directly comparing the known universal population of humans with the known universal population of elements.

Humans are 98% Male or Female with a long tail of variations in chromosones.

Elements are 98% Hydrogen or Helium with a long tail of variations in the nucleus and electron shells.

The elements have atypical clusterings on planets, humans have atypical clusterings in various cities.

It appears to be a sound comparison.


Yes, but this entire discussion skips over the obvious fact that the words "abnormal" and "normal" in typical human conversational contexts have very little to do with statistical ideas and more typically carry moral weight.

If the your whole point is that you want to say intersex people are abnormal in the sense that they are drawn from a portion of the distribution with small support, I guess that is fine, but if you use that language in an ordinary context, prepare to be misunderstood.


My whole point?

You may want to scroll up parent to parent - ta8645 is the user that I initially responded to and the person who first stated that humans were only either M or F and then moved to suggest that those who didn't fit the M or the F definitions (physically, at birth) were abnormal and outsiders.

My point, such as it is, is that when representing the world as we understand it through science we are faced with a flood of important long tail outliers - eg: collectively every element in the universe that is not Hydrogen and not Helium is proportional to the collection of every human that is neither not perfectly male (by physical birth reproductive biology definitions) nor perfectly female.

I regard the non H and non He elements as significant despite their rarity and it always strikes me as odd that some people make such a song and dance about humans that are born every year with the same frequency.

Regarding the English language, it's a normal common occurrence that { not perfect male, not perfect female } are born every year - a bookie can number their occurrance within a tight window as an example of how regular, precise, and predictable these numbers are.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: