--- In [email protected], Vaj <vajradh...@...> wrote: [...] >. Ekman's > results were astounding: the expert meditators were two standard > deviations above the norm, far beyond what had ever been previously > demonstrated. This same finding was also replicated in another > western Buddhist meditator. >
You can't measure two (or even 1) SD above the norm if you have only one data set for that range. All they really found was that their test wasn't able to adequately assess the group. IOW, if everyone else shows IQ's between 85 and 115 and you have one group that "scores" 145, you really can't claim they scored 145 because the test hasn't been calibrated outside the "normal" range of scores. Or, if you have data to define a partial bell-shaped curve, and one group of people falls far outside the rest of the data points, you have no idea where on the bell-shaped curve they are because you don't have enough data to define the shape of the curve in that region (or even if its bell-shaped). Just feeling picky this morning. L
