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A comment on Dutch men confirmed as world's tallest. Parent comment

Re:Dutch men confirmed as world's tallest by SideburnsOfDoom on Tuesday July 26, 2016 @05:17AM (#12164333)
I have looked at the reference for this (1) and I don't think it captures the idea that statistically, small groups vary more.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxima_and_minima

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Re:Dutch men confirmed as world's tallest by duggan on Tuesday July 26, 2016 @05:59AM (#12164489)
Ah, I think I'm with you now. My stats is rusty, but I think what you're asking about is one of the fundamentals of variance.

I think this[1] Stats StackExchange answer frames it well.

[1]: http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/129885/why-does-inc...

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Re:Dutch men confirmed as world's tallest by SideburnsOfDoom on Tuesday July 26, 2016 @07:34AM (#12164846)
That is helpful, thanks. Especially this part:

> I believe that the Law of Large Numbers explains why the variance (standard error) goes down when the sample size increases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

So what I was looking at is the inverse of the law of large numbers.

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