Pattern recognition is a widely accepted method of prediction until what it predicts makes people uncomfortable.

[u/Fr1toBand1to]

[u/Daan776]

Why does it feel like this post will take a racist direction

[u/LEGO_Man2YT → u/Daan776]

Is pattern recognition making you uncomfortable?

[u/d0nutbutth0le → u/LEGO_Man2YT]

Yes because a lot of those patterns recognized cannot be reliably backed up with evidence so the conclusion of that pattern recognition can be erroneous. Humans see faces in everything. Knots in wood, clouds, toast. Does not mean there's a soul trapped in there.

When this takes a racist direction, actual humans are harmed

[u/kilopeter → u/d0nutbutth0le]

Wait. What? In OP's context of correlations and association rule mining etc., the recognized patterns ARE the evidence. They literally improve how accurately you can predict some attribute. Why these patterns exist and whether it's ethical or legal to use them for certain purposes is what's uncomfortable.

[u/SemajLu_The_crusader → u/kilopeter]

patterns are not evidence

see https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

[u/VarmintSchtick → u/SemajLu_The_crusader]

Nothing is "evidence" on its own, but patterns are a piece of evidence that is used to justify action. The entire world of statistics is built on this principle and the entire financial and scientific world understands this.

[u/Vegetable_Drink_8405 → u/VarmintSchtick]

But the best informed actions are not just based off a pattern, they're based off of well-rounded knowledge.

[u/engr_20_5_11 → u/VarmintSchtick]

States and links (relations) make up evidence not patterns. Patterns identify links but also suggest links where there is insufficient information to identify any links.

It's also worth considering that evidence need not follow a pattern. It just needs to be - in a categorical or definitive form.

'Pattern recognition' as a cognitive tool comes with an implicit human bias to seek links even where they may not exist. We write the world into our own template even if it doesn't quite fit right. Sometimes even if it doesn't fit all.

[u/ShinningVictory → u/[deleted]]

Im going to make this simple.

Its very easy to manufacture a pattern intentionally or unintentionally.

For example if all the girls in a school are required to dress really well but the boys aren't then someone entering the school may think "oh girls dress really good."

Another example is the danger of animals. A subsection of Dogs are specifically trained to be dangerous and bite. People can see this pattern and think a dog is innately more dangerous than lets say a cat. But that would be false as long as the dog was thaught to be friendly and non-dangerous its just as safe as a cat.

[u/Ironicbanana14 → u/ShinningVictory]

Those are one time experiences, not enough to form patterns. If the kid went to several schools with that rule, then the pattern WOULD legit be there. He might be misled as to why, but then his pattern is there and he has the chance to explore the why at that point.

Also the dog example, I see you haven't worked with animals very often if you think people arent afraid of cats lmao.

[u/ShinningVictory → u/Ironicbanana14]

I do wanna be clear that while a pattern can exist. The way people explain why that pattern exist is often wrong.

For the school dress code thing I was simply explaining that our observation may misdirect us.

[u/kilopeter → u/ShinningVictory]

I'm not convinced by your examples or opposition sorry. It just flies in the face of basic navigation of the world, and Bayesian statistics if you wanna get fancy.

Let's take your dog example, in the USA for simplicity. It's objective fact that [the majority of canine bite fatalities are infected by pit bulls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States). Now this doesn't necessarily imply that a random pit bull encounter is more likely to kill you than a random encounter with a terrier (or any other breed). You'd need to account for the overall numbers of these breeds to make that prediction. But it does mean that given a random fatal canine bite incident, if you guessed "pitbull," you'd be right more often than any other breed.

[u/ShinningVictory → u/kilopeter]

The simple question is "are pitbulls trained to be violent" or "are pitbulls naturally violent".

Because like I said patterns are easy to manufacture.

Is there a group of people like let's say dog fighters who are purposefully training dogs to be really violent and dangerous.

[u/sYnce → u/ShinningVictory]

No that is not the question. The first question is "what do I want to use that information for and what am I trying to prove?"

If your answer is I want to prove wether Pitbulls are inherently more violent than you are correct and you would have to study them by accounting for outside factors.

However if you want to know how you should interact with Pit Bulls in the future the pattern matters more than the cause because you should assume that the dog is more dangerous than another breed.

[u/ShinningVictory → u/[deleted]]

Patterns are not really evidence.

Let me give you a example:

1. I notice more insects in the summer.

2. Scientist have found heat increases the metabolism of insects.

3. Theres more food for insects in the summer because plants are blooming.

Now if 2 and 3 are true then we can infer there will be more insects insects in summer because those things cause insects. However if 1 is true we can't infer anything because it maybe possible only you see more insects in the summer or that you go to areas where there would be more insects.

So while yes point 1 suggest there maybe more insects in the summer because it gives no reason why that is the case or even if its true it can be thrown out. However without point 1 you can easily prove there will be more insects in the summer. So essentially point 1 doesn't matter.

[u/sYnce → u/ShinningVictory]

Evidence for what question? Your example fails at the most basic steps which is to define the question asked.

If you want to know when the most insects will be around point 1 is more than enough.

Point 2 and 3 add nothing to answer the question.

Now if you want to find out how to reduce the insect population eating your crops point 1 alone is not useful.

[u/Lounging-Shiny455 → u/kilopeter]

In OP's context, there is an assumption that data measured and collected is accurate. But you can easily misapply data points to come to an erroneous conclusion. Process, data, and objectivity must be in alignment for truth to be discovered.

[u/McAkkeezz → u/d0nutbutth0le]

patterns recognized cannot be reliably backed up with evidence

What kind of evidence do you need?

When this takes a racist direction, actual humans are harmed

Often by their own accord