On 18/04/2013 16:28, Pete Resnick wrote: ... > That's a factor of between 4 and 7 difference between an "eyeball" guess > and a rough calculation. I think that's likely an unintentional sampling > bias of your (and many other folks) eyeballs. And I think it's because > we have a tendency to subconsciously discount the numbers of people who > do not appear in leadership, or even simply don't behave "the way the > rest of us do". > > This isn't to say that we should spend all of our time on this question > by collecting statistics; that's just navel gazing. But we do want to > understand the nature of the problem and not let our guesses and > subconscious biases get in the way. Indeed. Ideally, though, we need a statistician to look at the historical ratios (e.g. M/F ratios) in the attendee lists vs the I* membership, to see whether there is a statistically significant bias in the selection process over the years. Brian