Re:Natural born programmers
by steveklabnik on Friday October 11, 2013 @10:57AM
(#6533514)
One individual is not 'empirical evidence.'
I would say that any number of individuals "after the fact" are kind of weak as evidence. The very best empirical science is making a prediction of some new thing we've never seen before, and then testing the prediction.
So we don't dig up a bunch of bones and look for evidence that dinosaurs evolved into birds, we predict that if we dig, we will find something that looks a little like a dinosaur and a little like a bird, and then we dig.
Individuals and stories are part of good conversation. Skraushaar's comment was relevant and enjoyable.
Reflexive ideological dismissals, on the other hand, are just tedious.
Re:Natural born programmers
by steveklabnik on Friday October 11, 2013 @01:24PM
(#6534509)
Absolutely. For conversational value, it's great. But in a discussion about empirical research, it's misleading at best.
I agree. Nobody would have realized that this was just a single person's story if it hadn't been pointed out. Thank you; I was almost about to add a "biological mother's profession" and "biological father's profession" field to our recruiting questionnaire, and have been spared an embarrassment.
It is HIS empirical evidence.
It's his evidence based on his observation.
It's a meaningless observation. One anecdote is not statistically relevant.
Self-reports typically don't even count as one data point, because they're notoriously unreliable. Reports about one's childhood and motivations, doubly so. There's a reason psychology as a science is no longer based primarily on introspection, as it was in the 19th century.
Exceptions if people's self-conceptions are what is actually being studied; in that case collecting self-reports can be legitimate data-collection.
> Take my story for what you want
An anecdote, you mean? I expect better from HN, though I'm not sure why.
Re:Natural born programmers
by eignerchris_ on Friday October 11, 2013 @03:22PM
(#6535308)
What you have described sir, is an anecdote.
I was neither raised by or knew my biological family growing up (though I know them now). My mother is a developer, my supposed bio-dad is a developer, my late grandmother on my mother's side was a mathematician & psychologist, my grandfather on my mother's side was on the early teams at IBM, and my uncle whom is close to a doppelganger of me is a developer/linux admin. I knew none of these people growing up. My father and mother who raised me are respectively a restaurant manager and a hair stylist. Neither have any significant interest in the sciences or mathematics realms. Somehow I ended up in the family business without a shred of influence from them.
Take my story for what you want, but in this case the women were very much involved with the biological version.