Systems and Individuals
In a group discussion of awards and recognition, I asserted the following:
The Law and Statistical Thinking(The New Haven case)
One thing about classification schemes is that they should be mutually exclusive and selectively exhaustive. Translated that means that no sampling unit should belong to more than one class and that every sampling unit should be in a class. So the fact that every one of the firefighters is in a class (for the purpose of descriving their race, ethnicity, height, gender, or whatever) is a good thing.
Scientism lives on
I was reading through Nate Silver’s blog (which I love) and came across an item about the recent flap about the closing of Chrysler dealerships under their reorganization plan. Some GOP pundits have made the claim that there is a relationship between the decision to close a particular dealership was based on whether or not they were Republican campaign contributors or Democratic campaign contributors.
More on Samples of One
In the previous entry I discussed the hazards of samples of one. Later I began reading news articles from a variety of sources and also some blogs and they often involved an individual account of one kind or other. This type of evidence is call ‘anecdotal evidence in research circles and it almost invariably involves the use of a sample of one. That is, it is typically one person’s account experience in the subject area of the article. Newspaper accounts routine use this perspective.
Samples of one
A target shooter has a new rifle and wishes to adjust the sights so that the rifle is accurate. He loads the rifle and places a target some distance away and then assumes his firing position and fires a shot. He examines the target and finds that the hole produced by the shot is well to the left of the target center and below the bulls eye as well. What should he do?
