Re:Cory Doctorow: Our dangerous statistical ignorance
by aston on Wednesday May 21, 2008 @05:13PM
(#196565)
The assumption of independence underlying the math you're doing is probably outright false (albeit mathematically simple). As one example, imagine the case where all n schools use the exact same admissions criteria. Unless you're applying with a random application to each school, your math is shot; you will either get into every school or none of them. I won't even go into the genetic independence issue.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Cory Doctorow: Our dangerous statistical ignorance
by niels_olson on Friday May 23, 2008 @11:45AM
(#198106)
Every mathematical model is a false representation of reality. The predictive accuracy must be validated by experiment. And using the link I reference, you'll see there's actually some pretty strong data to start from in this case.