I can’t disprove that but I see no reason to invoke it either. If there were small clusters or niches or heterogeneity like that, I would still expect approaches like random forests to have found them (that’s exactly what they are brilliant at). And I have already explained why there have to be many severe illusions about how effective any selection process is, because no one experiences adequate sample sizes nor do they ever see the counterfactual.
On the one hand I agree that everything I know about this is anecdotal. On the other hand, am I really supposed to believe it’s a complete coincidence that my spouse is a STEM nerd who reads lots of sci/fantasy and is heavily involved with effective altruism[1]? The replication crisis etc left me with a feeling that when common sense and social science studies disagree, there’s a fair chance the studies are wrong. But, shrugs, what do I know...
Oh, and, another thought. There seems to be a pretty strong trend for celebrities to date other celebrities / show-business people. I think there’s also a trend for academics to date other academics. How come those random forests didn’t detect it?
And, I’m pretty sure there is a lot of selection based on ethnicity and religion (more than explainable by geography). Maybe you meant that this is just a “boring” part which we can assume given for the sake of the discussion?
A possible objection is: my spouse is like this because that’s how I’ve been selecting lovers. Okay, but the same is true about e.g. hotness. The aforementioned studies also weren’t causal interventions with control groups, I assume. (Plus, the selection pressure I applied wasn’t strong enough to explain the outcome.)
I think there’s also a trend for academics to date other academics. How come those random forests didn’t detect it?
Likely because all of the people in question were academics, or at least undergraduate ones, so there was no chance to detect differences in how they matched with non-academics:
Sample A consisted of 163 undergraduate students (81 women and 82 men; mean age = 19.6 years, SD = 1.0) who attended one of seven speed-dating events in 2005. Sample B consisted of 187 undergraduate students (93 women and 94 men; mean age = 19.6 years, SD = 1.2) who attended one of eight such events in 2007. Sample size was determined by the number of speed-dating events we were able to hold in 2005 and 2007 and the number of participants we were able to recruit for each event while maintaining an equal gender ratio. All participants, who were recruited via on-campus flyers and e-mails to participate in a speed-dating study, had the goal of meeting and potentially matching with opposite-sex participants. [...]
The present results were obtained with undergraduate samples; a more demographically diverse sample might exhibit matching by sociological factors such as age, socioeconomic status, cultural background, or religious background.
On the one hand I agree that everything I know about this is anecdotal. On the other hand, am I really supposed to believe it’s a complete coincidence that my spouse is a STEM nerd who reads lots of sci/fantasy and is heavily involved with effective altruism[1]? The replication crisis etc left me with a feeling that when common sense and social science studies disagree, there’s a fair chance the studies are wrong. But, shrugs, what do I know...
Oh, and, another thought. There seems to be a pretty strong trend for celebrities to date other celebrities / show-business people. I think there’s also a trend for academics to date other academics. How come those random forests didn’t detect it?
And, I’m pretty sure there is a lot of selection based on ethnicity and religion (more than explainable by geography). Maybe you meant that this is just a “boring” part which we can assume given for the sake of the discussion?
A possible objection is: my spouse is like this because that’s how I’ve been selecting lovers. Okay, but the same is true about e.g. hotness. The aforementioned studies also weren’t causal interventions with control groups, I assume. (Plus, the selection pressure I applied wasn’t strong enough to explain the outcome.)
Likely because all of the people in question were academics, or at least undergraduate ones, so there was no chance to detect differences in how they matched with non-academics: