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This is a blog on why we believe and do what we do, why we pretend otherwise, how we might do better, and what our descendants might do, if they don't all die.
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As anyone who watches television detective programmes will know, criminal profiling claims to predict the characteristics of an offender from an analysis of a crime’s circumstances. Most police forces in the developed world use profiling, … Several studies … comparing the predictions of profilers and non-profilers in mock crime situations where the characteristics of the “real” perpetrator are known. Drawing together the results of four of these studies in a meta-analysis published in 2007, Snook’s team found that the profilers did only slightly better than students without any experience of profiling, and that the predictive abilities of both were very low (Criminal Justice and Behavior, vol 34, p 437). (more)
Profiling Fails
Let's say you can choose between a 10% chance of death and an 11% chance of death. That's only a small margin, so you don't mind if I select one at random, right?
Of course not; a difference is still a difference.
I think that the point is, if profilers only outperform students by a small margin, why bother having profilers?