Oh, wait a minute, no it’s not! Knowing the demographics of a group is extremely relevant.
Would you say it’s irrelevant if 79% of people who got a specific disease were men, just because less than 0.01% of the population ever got the disease?
What about if 79% of a prison population was of a certain ethnicity, even though only 1 out of 100 people were incarcerated?
What about if 98% of school shooters were men, even if they are only a tiny fraction of the population?
Obviously not, these are key data sets to understanding the underlying causes. Sure, it helps to know how those stats compare to the general makeup of the population, and understanding what percentage of a population is effected is another useful piece of data depending on the questions you want answered. But to write off the makeup of a group as irrelevant is… dumb.
hmmm… that’s a good point.
Oh, wait a minute, no it’s not! Knowing the demographics of a group is extremely relevant.
Would you say it’s irrelevant if 79% of people who got a specific disease were men, just because less than 0.01% of the population ever got the disease?
What about if 79% of a prison population was of a certain ethnicity, even though only 1 out of 100 people were incarcerated?
What about if 98% of school shooters were men, even if they are only a tiny fraction of the population?
Obviously not, these are key data sets to understanding the underlying causes. Sure, it helps to know how those stats compare to the general makeup of the population, and understanding what percentage of a population is effected is another useful piece of data depending on the questions you want answered. But to write off the makeup of a group as irrelevant is… dumb.