What if the sample of the people I hang out with are a completely accurate representation of the entire domain? Would the paradox still apply?
But then you would find other paradoxes, like maybe you'd find that the smart/clean programmers you meet have a worse personality or are less athletic than the dumb/messy ones.
The only way for it to not apply at all, for every possible trait, is if you hang out with the entire planet at the same time.
I'm only referring to two traits here: intelligence and code sloppiness.
Does this paradox still apply in this case? Or is this paradox some kind of broad thing not relegated to a specific correlation?
And who's to say that the correlation I happen to want isn't real?
Biased samples don't automatically invalidate every aspect of the sample as a description of the reality. The possibility remains that every most programmers have two eyes just as smarter programmers tend to write sloppier code.
Look the general thing here is that anecdotal information is not automatically invalid. Your type of argument just goes around dismissing all forms of anecdotal data as if it's completely false. It's like you cannot even get up from bed and put your feet on the floor because there's no science saying that the floor exists.
Living in Scotland and sampling your data there, concludes that all humans are white, along with having two eyes.
So? I also conclude that most humans have two legs and 10 fingers and a head, and two ears and skin and hair. We gonna dismiss all of that because the data is just anecdotal?
>The plural of anecdote is not data!
The plural of anecdote is anecdotes (with an s) the adjective form of anecdote, is "anecdotal" as in "anecdotal" data.
When you walk you assume the ground is real based off of anecdotal data. Not science.
Data and science is hard and highly limited. The majority of the world is unverified with science. To limit your conclusions to only rigorous data is to say you cannot walk because you aren't sure the ground exists.
My claim here is that smarter people are more likely to write sloppy code. My meta claim is that That claim is both based off of anecdotal data and also likely to be true.
Your meta-claim lacks rigor. Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. The truth of a claim in the realm of human behavior and skills requires empirical evidence, which involves a stupid amount of work to make systematic observations to get shittons of data to override sampling bias, far beyond what any one human could experience. Without data, we've got speculation, not reliable conclusions.
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. You're entitled to believe "smarter people are more likely to write sloppy code." Just like I'm entitled to my opinion that that's based on evidence subject to confirmation and sampling bias rather than any grounding in fact. :) We're going around in circles at this point, so I'll stop, but it's been fun.
Yet you don't counter this claim. You make the same argument again and again stating that anecdotal data isn't truth. But you place each foot one in front of the other whenever you walk assuming the ground exists from purely anecdotal data. Why?
Thus my argument is valid. IF you don't respond to this then it is YOU who is going in circles. I have definitively responded to your point here with a contradiction. You HAVE not addressed the contradiction. The opening is laid out by me, but instead of moving forward you decide to repeat the same point.
Not trying to be offensive here. But I am clearly laying out exactly what's going on here. It is YOU who is travelling in a flat circle. NOT me.