Re:Court rules drug dog barely more accurate than a coin fli...
by shkkmo on Friday August 07, 2015 @03:09PM
(#10024360)
> But this is more like a procedure that will let you guess the number that will land > 50% of the time.
If have a procedure for guessing the number rolled on a 100 sided die, you are choosing between 100 different possible guesses. That is nothing like a dog guessing if a person has, or does have drugs (two possible guesses). Attempting to compare the accuracy rates between those two cases is major statistical error.
I thought this difference would be obvious to most readers of HN and was thus surprised to see such a simple statistical error being made. I did not think that verbose explanation would be needed once the error was pointed out.
If have a procedure for guessing the number rolled on a 100 sided die, you are choosing between 100 different possible guesses. That is nothing like a dog guessing if a person has, or does have drugs (two possible guesses). Attempting to compare the accuracy rates between those two cases is major statistical error.
I thought this difference would be obvious to most readers of HN and was thus surprised to see such a simple statistical error being made. I did not think that verbose explanation would be needed once the error was pointed out.