I think this is more complicated than can be summarized in ahort lists. I definitely don't have all the data, nor do I think anyone else does. Everything boils down to personal experience and anecdotal evidence. The scientifically collected data is always somewhat suspect. 20 years ago, I always believed scientific studies and scientific papers as being honestly researched, analyzed and presented. I no longer believe that. Unfortunately, these studies seem to be biased and manipulated. Not all of them, but a significant enough number that you have to check on who conducted the study and who funded the study.
All that being said, my personal experience and belief is that certain driving habits, certain styles of vehicle and certain vehicle attributes are more likely to provoke a police stop. I do not believe the majority of police pick vehicles to pull over due to race. The reasons I don't believe this is that the vast majority of the vehicles where I live have dark window tint. You cannot tell the race of driver from the outside of a vehicle here. I live in the southeast with subtropical heat. You can't even tell the gender of drivers here. The amount of people driving poorly seems to have increased dramatically in the last ten years, possibly because of cell phone usage. The police can pick almost any vehicle from around them and see some sort of vehicle violation. I stopped using my cell phone in the vehicle entirely. Even with hands free. This allows me to pay better attention to the driving habits around me. I see so many violations just driving back and forth to work, it isn't even funny. I also see the vehicles pulled over by the police, which there are many almost every day. The pattern of vehicles I see seem to fit a profile of young people, teens and early 20's seem to be the most common. My guess is, they have committed the most egregious driving offenses. The vehicle type pulled over the most often are small sporty type vehicles with aftermarket appearance and full size lifted pickups with bigger tires. Somehow, I don't think race is a factor in these stops.
"I only believe what I can see, I don't believe other people and assume they're lying if their studies, that I won't verify, disagree with my world view"
Your approach really doesn't leave a lot of room for debate so I'll let it go, but some generic questions:
Why can't things be different outside your personal sphere?
Why does your personal and anecdotal experience trump those of people who experience the opposite?
It doesn't trump other people's experiences. I just find it difficult to weight other people's experiences. I have also been around to understand that everyone has inherent biases. I am not excluded from the subset of everyone, so I accept that I see the world differently from everyone else. I just happen to know a lot of LEO's, in particular family members. Since I am not a white man, my experiences and viewpoints are more unbiased by racial preferences.
As far as studies go, there has been a recent revelation that approximately 40% of studies are flawed either intentionally or unintentionally. This makes the verification of study data to be crucial and to weight the conclusions appropriately. Undoubtedly, you have been aware of the extremely flawed scientific data involved with the recent Coronavirus and Climate change topics. If this doesn't make you more cautious in viewing study data, then I don't really have much of a footing to persuade you to any particular point of view. Because of the controversial topic of ethnic relations, I would excercise particular care in evaluating any study that draws any conclusion, either for or against. The source of funding for any related study involving ethnic topics are typically very biased for a particular outcome and are unusual in that funding does not typically come from any purely scientific inquiry.
If you're speaking of the study I think you are, it was more about "scientists" creating small-sample studies to find correlations that would generate viral headlines (and funding), usually to do with food, and the extent to which researchers would trip over themselves to make such a connection.
It shouldn't be used so broadly to discredit anything one doesn't like. The study referenced earlier was based on millions of pre-existing traffic stops which couldn't be massaged to the will of the person conducting the studies, and the numbers in this case were black and white (pardon the pun!). How many times were white people stopped, how many times were black people stopped, what are their respective portions of the population.
Mind you I wholeheartedly agree that we should think critically about what we're told, regardless of who is doing the telling, naturally.
I read the study. They published the raw data, so that is a big plus. This allows reproducibility, to some extent. The subjective weighting of some of the data may produce slightly different results. The last paragraphs discuss the traffic stops and searches of Washington State and Colorado, after the legalization of marijuana. It noted that a precipitous decrease in traffic stops among all three of their categories of ethnicities. It is interesting to note that only whites, blacks and latino people were culled from all the stops. I would be very curious to see any analysis of asian and middle eastern people. I suspect that these ethicities would have a much lower occurrence of stops and searches than the other three. The interesting take away is the number of white drivers that are stopped and subsequently searched have a higher rate of "hits" I.e. contraband is located and seized. Throughout the study of the data, there are numerous mentions of how the data could be misinterpreted and reveal a racial bias when none would necessarily be true. I particularly like the conclusions that by removing activities or particular items from being considered contraband would reduce the effects of policing on ethnic minorities. This particular statement stuck out like a sore thumb to me. "Our results, however, also point to the power of policy interventions—specifically, legalization of recreational marijuana—to reduce these racial disparities." & "Similarly, enforcement of minor traffic violations, like broken tail lights—even if conducted uniformly and without animus—can place heavy burdens on black and Hispanic drivers without improving public safety". These two statements in the conclusion/discussion portion of the study are clearly implying that traffic stops have been affected by actual valid reasons and are not simply because the officer had racial animus against the drivers. This leads to a possible conclusion that the people being stopped are selected for reasons other than ethnicity and that actual violations occurred that many be related to ethnicity, but not because of bias.
I think this is more complicated than can be summarized in ahort lists. I definitely don't have all the data, nor do I think anyone else does. Everything boils down to personal experience and anecdotal evidence. The scientifically collected data is always somewhat suspect. 20 years ago, I always believed scientific studies and scientific papers as being honestly researched, analyzed and presented. I no longer believe that. Unfortunately, these studies seem to be biased and manipulated. Not all of them, but a significant enough number that you have to check on who conducted the study and who funded the study. All that being said, my personal experience and belief is that certain driving habits, certain styles of vehicle and certain vehicle attributes are more likely to provoke a police stop. I do not believe the majority of police pick vehicles to pull over due to race. The reasons I don't believe this is that the vast majority of the vehicles where I live have dark window tint. You cannot tell the race of driver from the outside of a vehicle here. I live in the southeast with subtropical heat. You can't even tell the gender of drivers here. The amount of people driving poorly seems to have increased dramatically in the last ten years, possibly because of cell phone usage. The police can pick almost any vehicle from around them and see some sort of vehicle violation. I stopped using my cell phone in the vehicle entirely. Even with hands free. This allows me to pay better attention to the driving habits around me. I see so many violations just driving back and forth to work, it isn't even funny. I also see the vehicles pulled over by the police, which there are many almost every day. The pattern of vehicles I see seem to fit a profile of young people, teens and early 20's seem to be the most common. My guess is, they have committed the most egregious driving offenses. The vehicle type pulled over the most often are small sporty type vehicles with aftermarket appearance and full size lifted pickups with bigger tires. Somehow, I don't think race is a factor in these stops.
"I only believe what I can see, I don't believe other people and assume they're lying if their studies, that I won't verify, disagree with my world view"
Your approach really doesn't leave a lot of room for debate so I'll let it go, but some generic questions:
Why can't things be different outside your personal sphere?
Why does your personal and anecdotal experience trump those of people who experience the opposite?
It doesn't trump other people's experiences. I just find it difficult to weight other people's experiences. I have also been around to understand that everyone has inherent biases. I am not excluded from the subset of everyone, so I accept that I see the world differently from everyone else. I just happen to know a lot of LEO's, in particular family members. Since I am not a white man, my experiences and viewpoints are more unbiased by racial preferences.
As far as studies go, there has been a recent revelation that approximately 40% of studies are flawed either intentionally or unintentionally. This makes the verification of study data to be crucial and to weight the conclusions appropriately. Undoubtedly, you have been aware of the extremely flawed scientific data involved with the recent Coronavirus and Climate change topics. If this doesn't make you more cautious in viewing study data, then I don't really have much of a footing to persuade you to any particular point of view. Because of the controversial topic of ethnic relations, I would excercise particular care in evaluating any study that draws any conclusion, either for or against. The source of funding for any related study involving ethnic topics are typically very biased for a particular outcome and are unusual in that funding does not typically come from any purely scientific inquiry.
If you're speaking of the study I think you are, it was more about "scientists" creating small-sample studies to find correlations that would generate viral headlines (and funding), usually to do with food, and the extent to which researchers would trip over themselves to make such a connection.
It shouldn't be used so broadly to discredit anything one doesn't like. The study referenced earlier was based on millions of pre-existing traffic stops which couldn't be massaged to the will of the person conducting the studies, and the numbers in this case were black and white (pardon the pun!). How many times were white people stopped, how many times were black people stopped, what are their respective portions of the population.
Mind you I wholeheartedly agree that we should think critically about what we're told, regardless of who is doing the telling, naturally.
I read the study. They published the raw data, so that is a big plus. This allows reproducibility, to some extent. The subjective weighting of some of the data may produce slightly different results. The last paragraphs discuss the traffic stops and searches of Washington State and Colorado, after the legalization of marijuana. It noted that a precipitous decrease in traffic stops among all three of their categories of ethnicities. It is interesting to note that only whites, blacks and latino people were culled from all the stops. I would be very curious to see any analysis of asian and middle eastern people. I suspect that these ethicities would have a much lower occurrence of stops and searches than the other three. The interesting take away is the number of white drivers that are stopped and subsequently searched have a higher rate of "hits" I.e. contraband is located and seized. Throughout the study of the data, there are numerous mentions of how the data could be misinterpreted and reveal a racial bias when none would necessarily be true. I particularly like the conclusions that by removing activities or particular items from being considered contraband would reduce the effects of policing on ethnic minorities. This particular statement stuck out like a sore thumb to me. "Our results, however, also point to the power of policy interventions—specifically, legalization of recreational marijuana—to reduce these racial disparities." & "Similarly, enforcement of minor traffic violations, like broken tail lights—even if conducted uniformly and without animus—can place heavy burdens on black and Hispanic drivers without improving public safety". These two statements in the conclusion/discussion portion of the study are clearly implying that traffic stops have been affected by actual valid reasons and are not simply because the officer had racial animus against the drivers. This leads to a possible conclusion that the people being stopped are selected for reasons other than ethnicity and that actual violations occurred that many be related to ethnicity, but not because of bias.
Can you send me a link? I would be happy to read the study and look at the raw data sources.
Nevermind. I see you posted it already. I will read it. Thanks.