In my life there is no subject that has given me more grief than these two subjects. And I don't mean the sleepless nights mugging up before an exam. I mean real day to day life in which you bump into people who justify all their pre-conceived notions and prejudices in the cloak of quoting statistical figures about things in the past. Weather it is about a match between IND vs AUS or it is about making sweeping generalisations about minorities such as African americans, and American Indians and for that matter indians.
And I wonder when are you going to meet or interact with any given population as a population. Don't you always interact with people one at a time or two or at the most a few who even if the stats are correct are nothing but a fraction of the said population and can spread over anywhere in the given Gaussian distribution of most things. How does a particular statistic equip me better in my encounter with a person of any origin? Aren't these historical statistics nothing but an excuse to justify our prejudices or lack of really usable information and unwillingness to admit to it.
Nothing infuriates me as much as sweeping typifying of diversity and quirks and everything that makes life charming and worth living and not just reading about!
