Cherry picking
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Cherry picking may also refer to the process of collecting erroneous coins.
- A cherry picker is a device for raising a person to allow working at a height.
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[edit] Metaphorical use
In the literal case of harvesting cherries, or any other fruit, the picker would be expected to only select the ripest and healthiest fruits. An observer who only sees the selected fruit may thus wrongly conclude that most, or even all, of the fruit is in such good condition.
Thus, cherry picking is used metaphorically to indicate the act of pointing at individual cases that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases that may contradict that position.
For example, opponents of safety belts often cite rare cases in which car accident victims were strangled, or trapped, by a safety belt, whereas accident statistics suggest that they much more commonly save the life of the passenger (unless used improperly).
[edit] When is cherry picking appropriate?
When a person is assigned to advocate a particular position, then cherry picking is entirely appropriate. Lawyers in a criminal case are one such example, where it is assumed to be the responsibility of the opposing counsel to present any contrary data. In addition in common law guilt has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt and thus introducing 'cherry picked' evidence is entirely appropriate because, while such data may not prove something in general, it may be successful in introducing the needed minimum level of doubt to win the case.
However, when a person with a supposedly neutral position cherry picks, that is inappropriate. Examples would be journalists, scientists, and judges.
[edit] Weighing information
For a more involved example, imagine we wish to find the average height of men in the U.S., and we have in hand a sample of average heights of men by state, across years. We could average these heights and call this the right number. We could just average the heights in the most recent year. We could give a weighted average of heights, based on the population of each state. Or we could pick the two states with the highest average height and call this the national average.
In each case, we are integrating information differently, weighing different pieces of evidence differently. But cherry-picking would be represented by the last, where one weighs many relevant pieces of information (that one possesses) at zero and favors the information that is preferred. So there is a large difference between weighing information differently based on its quality to come to a conclusion and outright ignoring information that is not preferred.
[edit] In specific fields
[edit] Business
Cherry picking is also used to refer to business policies of picking out profitable customers from a large base. An example of this use is that by only insuring healthy people and refusing to insure those who were unhealthy or are likely to become unhealthy, a health insurance company can cherry pick the most profitable customers. If an auto insurance company only insured good drivers by cherry picking them from among all drivers this would enable a company to gain an advantage over a company that insures all drivers.
To prevent auto insurance companies from cherry picking only the good drivers and leaving poorer drivers without any insurance, most states in the U.S.A. require auto insurance companies to insure a certain number of drivers with poor records.
[edit] Software configuration management
In SCM jargon, Cherry picking is used to describe the action of selecting which patches (or changesets, or commits) should be ported from one branch to another.
[edit] Sports
Cherry picking in sports is the tactic of waiting close to the opponent's goal in hope of receiving the object in play (ball, puck etc) and redirecting it towards the goal. The tactic often degrades the quality of game play, so it is common for sports to include a rule to prevent or discourage the practice. Hockey, for example, requires that a player not enter the offensive zone before the puck.
[edit] Australian taxation
In the 1970s and early 1980s in Australia, cherry picking was a tax avoidance scheme based on tax deductions for company contributions to a superannuation fund. Such a fund was notionally for the benefit of employees, but the benefits (the "cherries") were picked by the company or its owners.
