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Tails of distributions, unhappy implications | 145 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
Authored by: Chromatix on Saturday, June 23 2012 @ 07:42 AM EDT
It is a wise man indeed who automatically thinks critically and skeptically when
presented with statistics.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The price of everything and the value of nothing.
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 23 2012 @ 07:59 AM EDT
I'm reminded of another saying -
Figures don't lie, but liars can figure.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Tails of distributions, unhappy implications
Authored by: hardmath on Saturday, June 23 2012 @ 08:56 AM EDT
A notoriously difficult problem in statistical estimation is how to parameterize
the tails of a sample distribution.

If we allowed Oracle the unsupported assumption that the small handful of
patents in suit happened to represent the highest value tail (why?), then an a
posteriori implication is that most of their portfolio must be worthless because
most of the patents Oracle claimed Google infringed were invalid.



---
"Prolog is an efficient programming language because it is a very stupid theorem
prover." -- Richard O'Keefe

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Statistical analysis of irrelevant data
Authored by: FreeChief on Saturday, June 23 2012 @ 12:09 PM EDT
My brain overheats and closes down whenever I read the word 'statistics'.
I understand the basics of statisics tolerably well, but so what? I don't understand why it's not contempt of court to even start down this path.

I think my neighbor has taken something from my yard. I take him to court and charge him with theft. Rather than present evidence to show that it was valuable (not a cigarette butt), I present a statistical study of the average value of goods taken in bank robberies.

Will the court, or anyone else, care to argue about statistical power and Chi-square fitting of distributions?

Or will I feel the bump of the bailiffs disdain on the backside of my pitiful case?

 — Programmer in Chief

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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