"90% of people blah blah blah"

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

I think that everyone in one way or another came across phrases like "95% of people are idiots" or "only 3% of people are able to solve such and such a problem." The specific numbers of percentages themselves may be different, but the general meaning is that, depending on the goals of the author of the phrase, they are either close to 100% (i.e. 90-95-98), or 0% (i.e. 3- 5-10). Such phrases sometimes start to annoy, because they are pronounced by people who are not familiar with mathematical statistics and are pronounced "for the sake of a word." That is why you often hear a reproach in your address when you yourself use such a turn of speech, even if you know the statistics and are aware of what was said. Let's figure out when you can and when you can not use such inferences.

To begin with, I'll point to the root of such estimates. This root is the law of normal distribution. In mathematics, it has a strictly defined formulation, but its actions extend to sociology and psychology, and in general to all processes in nature, in which a large sample of something can be evaluated on a certain linear scale of values.

The law of normal distribution on the example of the scale of the level of intelligence

Shifting the law to sociology, we can say this: if we evaluate people by some numerical parameter (intelligence, height, average heart rate, life expectancy, etc.), then we get that the overwhelming majority of people (about 90%) will have some the average of this quantity, perhaps with a slight deviation. Only 5% will have this parameter significantly more than the majority, and 5% - much less.

Take, for example, the IQ scale (in spite of all its artificiality now). Approximately 90% of people have an average IQ of between 70 and 130, the rest are either too stupid (if the IQ is less than 70, then it is considered that the person is mentally retarded), or very smart. That is, we can say that 5% remains for both. Of course, the question here is what is considered "average". If we take a smaller range - from 90 to 110, then we get only 50% of people in this range. Of course, there may be statistically significant differences between different groups of people, because the IQ tests are not perfect and are more focused on some "average European". But the point is, if instead of IQ tests there were any other tests covering any other spheres of human activity (running, jumping, the ability to hold one's breath for a long time, sleep time, etc.), then the distribution would be exactly the same: 90% would fall into some average, and there would be 5% of some special people both down and up. This law always works. It is even more correct to say not "the law works", but this is the property of assessments of the natural characteristics of nature used by man … Any such estimates inevitably contain the mean (norm) and deviation from the mean, and the mean is always greater.

This law is well known not only in sociology, but also in production. So, in an ordinary enterprise producing, say, nails, a significant part of the nails will be of acceptable quality, but there will always be a few bad nails (say, without a head or not sharpened) and very good (for example, their shear strength exceeds the tensile strength of a conventional nail) … This will be the case in any technological process.

The reason why so often you hear this hackneyed phrase "90% of people blah blah blah" is precisely because the speaker of this phrase intuitively understands the validity of the law for all social processes, that he does not mean exactly 90%, but simply wants to show, "a lot" or that something is "in the order of things." If a person speaks of some exclusivity of a certain property, then always the phrase that 90% of people have this property or do not have it will be fair. Another question is to what extent this person himself possesses the specified property and to what extent this property makes sense in general.

For example, 99% of the people on the planet cannot breathe air through their eyes (through the eye holes in the skull). Yes, most likely this is so, because out of 100 of my acquaintances, no one knows how and in the whole history I have seen only one such person in the video, that is, the number 99% seems even too small for me. But why do we need this property at all? What is this exclusivity for? I don't see the point in that.

If a person has an intellect of 140, then he may well classify himself as one of those 5% of people with an exceptional mind. But if you take all people of exceptional intelligence, then 95% of them will be idiots in relation to 5% of those whose intelligence is prohibitively high. If you take all people with prohibitively high intelligence … well, you get the idea.

So, I want to say the following: you can always choose a particular criterion by which we get a normal distribution and select any number of percentages in it that we need. The more such particular criteria, the more exceptional they make any particular person. For example, you are more than two meters tall. Congratulations, you are in the 5% of exceptionally tall people. If at the same time you know how to play the guitar well, then you also fall into 5% of people who know how to play the guitar well. There are very few people like you. If at the same time you know how to run long distances (say, a marathon), then there are probably no more people like you. You can be entered in the Guinness Book of Records as an exceptionally tall person who can play the guitar and run a marathon. For the sake of reliability, let's say that you do not drink alcohol. Then you are probably the only one on the planet.

Do you see where I am leading? You can always pick up a number of criteria by which you will be the only one person on the planet who will be exceptional (or even the only one) with this property. And this is just a monstrous logical error in assessing the situation. Such criteria often reflect only one side of the issue, and if there are many such criteria, then the issue is generally cut short.

Take a political opposition figure. He will definitely say that 95% of people are politically impotent and are not able to somehow influence the course of events in his beloved country. Yes, according to this narrow criterion it will be so. However, the oppositionist himself is unlikely to be included in the 5% of people who understand politics, in 5% of people with high intelligence, in 5% of people who have enough political will to solve complex social problems, in 5% of people who develop science, thanks to which the opposition can take a selfie on your iPhone. He belongs to a 95 percent gray mass of people dissatisfied with their position who want something, but do not know what exactly. It refers to those 95% of people who think that in the place of such and such a politician they would do differently and everything would be better.

Take an intelligent liberal intellectual who thinks on the Internet, who, of course, will classify himself as one of the 5% of people who make up the flower of the nation. Perhaps he is right, he is like Bread of the Russian Land, cuts the truth right and left. But he does not belong to those 5% of people who influence the course of political events and does not belong to the "gray mass" on which he parasitizes. It belongs to another 95 percent gray mass of parasites, capable of nothing and living at the expense of the ordinary people.

Each of us, according to some criterion, will always fall into 5% of one thing and 95% of something else. This is inevitable and absolutely certain. Therefore, when such assessments are used, then in a significant part of cases (in 95% of cases, to be precise) this indicates the narrowness of the views of the person who uses such assessments as an argument.

Yes, 90% of people are people who go with the flow. But these are, first of all, the people who make up our world, and at whatever stage of development it is, always 90% of people will wallow about some kind of average behavior. And there will always be 5% of people who pull these people somewhere, somewhere in the direction of development. Such a division into the “gray mass” and the “elite” does not lead to anything good. To each his own. Someone needs to live and work in order to provide resources for themselves and those who live and move development forward. We need both those and others - and each in its place. And everyone should understand the responsibility of their position. The "gray mass" and backward people are gradually reaching the level of those who develop society, and those, in turn, go further - and there will always be some 95%, and the rest - 5%. So what?

When can you use the phrase "90% of people blah blah blah"? Firstly, when you have statistics or at least an indirect confirmation of your words, and secondly, when such a division makes sense and is not a manifestation of the narrowness of your ideas. When such an assessment is an important part of a conclusion and action, from it the following.

For example, "90% of people in our age of information technology do not know the basics of information security." If the assessment is correct and its purpose is to convince specialists to develop a safety improvement program, then it makes sense. It can be suggested to increase general literacy in this area by introducing additional courses at school, university, colleges and other educational institutions. If the assessment is not correct, or if its purpose is simply to laugh at people who have a password on the mail “123456”, then it makes no sense.

Another example, "90% of people are idiots." This assessment most likely makes no sense, because from a medical point of view, it is incorrect. The author of such a phrase, most likely, wants to say "90% of people think differently than I do." For example, he may consider himself exceptional, because he does not watch TV, but he still falls into 90% of those who do not watch TV who brag about not having a TV while reading zombie news on the Internet. This is not a reason to boast through such statements.

Another example, "90% of programmers cannot program." If you are a cool hacker or just a gifted programmer, then 90% will be too small for you. But this is a very narrow view of the world, because it depends on what is considered programming. Programming can be very, very different: from complex scientific problems, where you need to invent your own algorithms and at least know all the algorithmic classics of Computer Science, to Software Engineering and web programming, where completely different skills are needed. Be sure that if you know 100 cool algorithms win programming olympiads, then most likely you belong to 95% of people who do not know how to correctly develop software and make cool sites, and vice versa, if you develop software or sites, most likely you belong to 95% of people who don't understand algorithms. And this is neither bad nor good, this is a real assessment of the situation, which does not call for anything. If you see the phrase "90% of programmers do not know how …" or "only 10% of programmers can …", then you can almost certainly safely assume that the author of the phrase has a mess of fragmentary ideas about programming in his head, he lives in some kind of narrow world and looks at the rest of the world from the position of extremely limited estimates.

Similarly, you can say about almost all such phrases - they are usually used without understanding in detail what and how it works in our world.

So, once again I repeat the general conclusion, in 90% of cases the phrase about 90% of something is not consistent and only reflects the narrowness of its author's ideas about the situation to which she is assessing. There will be meaning only if this phrase at least approximately reflects the real state of affairs and has a constructive meaning, that is, for example, it is an additional argument in favor of a particular strategy of behavior designed to correct the situation for the better.

In my phrase above, the constructive meaning is that I suggest thinking about every time you see or want to use such an assessment yourself. Think about why this is being done and what goals are being pursued, whether the phrase is arguing or just thrown for a "catch phrase", and also try to check whether the estimate is at least approximately plausible.