opaqueice;373810 Wrote: > > You do realize that all the objections you're making could be made to > every single experiment ever performed in any field of science? And > that those experiments have been rather useful? No, don't get me wrong. I've just been educated about being very careful about statistical interpretations. No more. Nothing to do with science, just with interpretations. At work, I deal every day with various potentially abusive (although apparently logical) assumptions. Not all of these assumptions are wrong, but the risk is always there. These assumptions result in erroneous interpretations. My job consists of building foreseeable (controlled) future systems' behavior. So, the fewer the assumptions, the better. And, I know, it's always difficult to discuss about logical assumptions, especially when they appear incontestable. But, every day people come to see me because their system doesn't behave as they had calculated it would/should. And guess what ? The last thing they want to discuss is their assumptions. Unfortunately, when the calculations are correct, the only thing that differentiates a foreseeable model from reality is... well, you get the point I'm sure. :) When certain variables just can't be verified, you have to eliminate them one after another. For instance, in this coffee problem, I would start with measuring the audience's ability of choosing a coffee. Just like Pat did with his magic switch : serve the same coffee and eliminate all audience which finds a difference. Or (if you don't want to eliminate them) at least you have to take into account that -for instance- 30% of them give inconsistent answers. So, we have now one more variable fixed. Because the assumptions that 0%, 50% or 100% of consistency or inconsistency they are all wrong.
-- Themis SB3 - North Star dac 192 - Denon 3808 - Sonus Faber Grand Piano Domus ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Themis's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=14700 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=56712 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
