Rob Fedders on the necessity and validity of generalizations. (HT: Ferd)
For example, saying something like “women have larger breasts than men” is a sweeping generalization. But, it is a true one – even though some women have smaller breasts than some men. In the collective group of “women” there will be some individual women who have small breasts, while in the collective group of “men” there will be some porky men sporting a set of man-boobs. But only an idiot would try to cherry pick a flat chested woman and stand her next to a man-boobed male and claim that this is in any way a reflection of human intellectualism, therefore, we should not say that “women have larger breasts than men” anymore. It is lunacy! The only thing we might be able to learn then is that “both men and women have nipples.” Wow! Stop everything right there! The Tower of Babel is already reaching into the heavens! What more could we possibly learn?
Generalizations are absolutely necessary in order to learn anything.
Of course, what one cannot do is take one individual and generalize that the entire group resembles that individual. Take Marc Lepine, for example. Feminists have been screeching for over two decades now that Marc Lepine is “proof” of the murderous hatred men harbour for women. Now that is pure lunacy. The actions of oneman is in no way a reflection of the mentality of the 15,000,000 other men who live in Canada. That is a wrong generalization.
I’ve also talked about the importance of generalizations.
Good post.