Regression to the Mean

Regression to the Mean Something must be wrong with me as I went from thinking about regression to the mean to something else ... I seem to recall that regression to the mean is a statistical phenomenon about how data measurements taken once that are extremely higher or lower than the mean will likely be found closer to the mean on a second measurement. Sir Francis Galton, a British scholar who studied a wide variety of things including human differences with regard to a variety of characteristics, documented this phenomenon. The idea was published in Galton’s Natural Inheritance published in 1889 (see https://galton.org/books/natural-inheritance/pdf/galton-nat-inh-1up-clean.pdf and look at Appendix E). In the 1880s, Galton was noticing that some researchers attributed causes to events that were just as easily explained by the highly common regression to the mean with regard to extreme cases. It is now 2021 and researchers still make the same mistake that Galton saw so many years ago. Failure to understand regression to the mean is still all too common. Such failures are all too common, especially for a commoner like me. Another regression comes to mind today, however. Namely, regression to the meanness. This too is all too common. Witness how quite reasonable statements such as “I will nominate a black woman” are treated as a form of creating a ridiculous criterion that amounts to favoring someone who cannot distinguish a law book from a J. Crew Catalog. Since I have no clue what a J. Crew Catalog is, I suppose I would also have trouble distinguishing a law book from a J. Crew Catalog. The meanness of the criticism is apparent. From the statement to the criticism involves a regression to meanness. Another criticism was that the statement implies that the majority of people are not qualified to be considered nominess for such a prestigious position. After all, most people are not black women. The meanness is again apparent overlooking two hundred years of racist mistreatment and abusive treatment. Perhaps the white person making that criticism is only three fifths human … or perhaps that is overly generous to someone exhibiting this form of regression to meanness. But it is a reminder of the dark history of racism that many would like to ignore and prevent children from learning. Oh, what a tangled web they weave when first they practice to deceive (my apologies to Sir Walter Scott). By some counts, DJT lied more than 30,000 times during his time as the official resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is not about just one big lie. It is about 30,000 lies and official government paper documents torn up to get rid of damning evidence. We had eight years, more or less, prior to number 45 but then there was the regression to meanness … not just in the white house but in the dark hearts of so many people I once considered friends and even family. I want to think about things that are central to learning and education but then my mind takes me down that path paved by the regression to meanness … such a dark path shrouded in that tangled web of hate and venom … and it causes me much anger and anguish … anguish because I do not see a movement back to normalcy … the tipping point has passed and the demons are out of the closet … burn the books … lie to our children … don’t let those three fifths people vote … Birmingham Sunday has become the American Mourningday … lest we forget … forget the six million who died … there were good people on both sides … forget all those hangings that were all too common … and forget those children who died that Sunday in Birmingham … this is the land of the free and the home of the brave … at least those who are carrying their AR-15s … oh yes … the “truth” they are telling is just the “truth” that is selling … sold American … sold down the dark drain of hate and bias and the wrongheaded confidence in one’s own infallibility … while the choir keeps singing of freedom. Okay. I will go away and hide … along with all those buried truths … truth crushed to earth will rise again. mike ... cowering in the state of denial called Texas ...