[.ca] Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes (ISBN 0674021185)

Very good introduction to the how's and why's of profiling:
This book is an excellent introduction to the concept and application of profiling based on generalizations. The phrase that the author uses repeatedly throughout the book is "nonspurious nonuniversal generalization." Nonspurious = statistically significant, nonuniveral = not applying to everyone in a group, generalization = self-explanatory. The author uses dog attacks to illustrate this concept. Take the assertion, "Pitbulls are dangerous." Although a small percentage of pitbulls are responsible for attacks on humans (nonuniversal), this percentage is statistically much greater (nonspurious) than for other dogs. Knowing this factual information, are we justified in labeling pitbulls "dangerous." These are the kinds of issues that the author discusses in his book. The topics he covers range from the fairness of forced retirement of pilots at age sixty, the debate over a judge's power over sentencing, and of course, racial profiling. The author does an outstanding job for the most part in discussing these issues and proving his point, but I thought he did not defend his views on racial profiling with respect to airport security very well. I don't think he accurately assessed the potential cost to society in arguing against the inclusion of "Middleeasterness" as part of a larger profile. In other words, are we willing to forgo including "Middleeasterness" as part of a larger profile thereby increasing the potential of not identifying a terrorist? The author's discussion of this point is lengthy, but in summary, he opposes this particular kind of profiling in airports, but I don't think his argument was completely justified (and this is coming from me who was stopped repeatedly after 9/11 because of my Middle Eastern appearance). All in all, this is a great book, and it will certainly get you thinking about some of the most important issues facing the US today.

In Defense of Generalities, Light:
In parables and aphorisms the author likes to speak. Its title notwithstanding, this book is not an empirical study of statistical probabilities, profiling, or stereotyping. It is a philosophical defense of the use of generalities, painting with broad strokes so to speak, in daily intercourse and social constructs. The defense is of nonspurious, nonuniversal generalizations in lofty, and some not so lofty, decisions all of us make and employ in survival as individuals, as a species, and as a society. But, to appropriate from George Orwell's "Animal Farm," some generalities are more equal than others. Some generalizations are more pernicious than others; so while quite salient, still they must be considered to be exceptions to the general rule that generalizations are socially acceptable, legal, and indeed, just. These exceptions, of course, are race and gender. First the author builds a strong case justifying the use especially of race/ethnicity in generalizing for purposes of distinguishing airline passengers exhibiting terroristic characteristics from those who do not. Examples include the now hackneyed young, middle eastern male, paying cash for his (and everyone else's) one way ticket to Nirvana. But then, possibly as an implicit (certainly in no way explicit) concession to the politically correct faction of society, the author proceeds to tear down his own argument in favor of using race/ethnicity in this particular case to avoid a repeat of the tragedy of 9/11, in favor of eschewing race/ethnicity, because we can just vet everybody at the airport; the only inconvenience being that everybody must arrive 30 minutes earlier. Excuse me! This is a WAR, not a few pounds of pot, we are talking about - a jihad declared not by Western civilization, but on Western civilization, precisely by a specific group of deviants whose race/ethnicity even the author concedes is highly salient to their early identification for purposes of avoiding another 9/11. To employ another aphorism the author blithely ignores -"all's fair in love and war." Why then should we, whose very existence our enemy is trying to obliterate, afford the enemy the aid and comfort of turning a blind eye to their common origins, when declining to do so would save our own hides? To borrow another aphorism I recently read, "the Constitution is not a mutual suicide pact." To blazes with our inconvenience and the enemy's rights; if generalizations are just, as according to the author they are, and if ethnicity is a salient generalization in the case of the profile of middle eastern terrorists, as the author so concedes, let those who meet the profile of the enemy suffer the indignity and inconvenience of being pulled from the passenger line. The author, it must be remembered, is the one who rails in favor of generalization in derrogation of "individuation." So let it be. To coin a final aphorism, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander."