I wouldn't disagree Craig ... I was simply reporting a fact, remember we were "speaking of embarrassing crap", not philosophy ;-) Ian
On 7/5/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [ian]> Marx was voted the greatest philosopher by a BBC "In Our Time" survey > last year > Unless one knows exactly how the survey was conducted, this kind of data > isworthless. Leave aside how representative or how knowledgeable the > sampling was.Generally how these surveys work is that either (a) there is a > list to choose fromor (b) the respondent can respond with any name they > choose. [Case (a) is just asubset of case (b).] Assume case (a) with a list > of 19 philosophers.18 philosophers can get 5% of the vote each & Marx can get > 10%,if so Marx wins the survey. But what if the same people are asked "Who > is theworst philosopher of our time?" Marx gets 90% & 10% is distributed > among the18. So the result of the survey is: 18 philosophers get 5% vote > for best &1/2 % for worst, while Marx gets 10% for best & 90% for worst. > There's nolonger any reason to think Marx is the best philosopher.Craig > > > > moq_discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
