OK. Time to haul out the birthday problem now. What is the probability that there are at least 2 people who post to the TIPS list on a given day sharing the same birthday? Given that TIPS gets at least 20 or more posts from different people on a given day, the probability is surprisingly high (better than 50% - google "birthday problem" for the math and the exact solution).
Individual specific coincidences are odd and feel rare (the question is different if we asked how many share December 2 as their birthday. The probability of any two people sharing any of the 365 potential birthdays in a sample of 20 is so high that you could reliably make some money betting on this outcome in a bar if you can find people foolish enough to take you up on it. As for shared names, we not only have many members of TIPS with the name in question, they are also people who post something to nearly every message (and complain about the 3 message per day limit from time to time). Combine frequency of name with frequency of posting and this phenomenon is not such a rare event. Anyone care to do a search of the archive and count the number of threads with 3 or more posts from 3 or more Michaels? This is all the play I get. Now I've got some work to do ..... ;-) Claudia Stanny University of West Florida -----Original Message----- From: Allen Esterson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 12:39 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Philosophical differences? Annette Taylor wrote re my crude attempt at estimating the probability of the first three posters on a topic having the name Michael: >You can find the most popular boys names given >in the US at: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/ >I don't have a lot of time so I just went with 1950, 1955, 1960, >1965, 1970, 1975--years when I think many tipsters were born >and only on the 5's to save time. Michael was almost always >Number 1, once number 2, and once number 4. >So maybe the coincidence isn't all that great. I suspect there are more >Michaels than anyone else on the list and the base rate needs to be >accounted for. Hmm, very Bayesian of me, given that I'm not a statistician. I did allow a generous five Michaels out of a guessed 50 active TIPSter to get my probability estimate of 0.001. (I can only think of four Michaels.) But... it occurred to me while walking in Kew Gardens (London, not New York) this afternoon that the probability is actually much less than that. It has to be the probability of three Michaels being the first to post just happening to occur when the topic is synchronicity. I leave to a professional statistician how you would work out the odds for that, but they must be pretty long. Makes you think, dunnit. Chris Green wrote: >Knowing and understanding need not be the same as believing >and adhering. I agree that (if you are gong to include Jung in >your syllabus) that you own it to them to present him in the >best possible light (and then later to present his critics in the >best possible light). Otherwise, he just becomes a foil for your >own beliefs. Agreed, though I would express it slightly differently - something like, present Jung's ideas in <i>his</i> terms. But maybe that's the same thing. >He was among that group of early- and mid-20th century >writers who attempted, with varying degrees of success, >to bring (what they took to be) eastern thought to the >western public (Crowley, Blavatsky, Merton, Watts, etc.) I'm not sure that Merton and Watts would have wanted to have appeared in the same sentence as Blavatsky and Crowley! That set me checking out the amazing Madame Blavatsky (amazing in a number of ways), and discovered that it is claimed that she was the first to coin the expression "intelligent design": http://www.blavatsky.net/darwin/ "However, it was not just a view - it was based on knowledge. This intelligence in nature can be sensed and known through the mind by advanced seers. A body of seers have checked, tested, and mutually verified their observations on this matter over very long periods of time before accepting them as valid. In this way their observations have become knowledge." More on the seers: "The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages -- such is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain in the bewildering series of evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of geometrical signs and glyphs. The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there." http://www.blavatsky.net/intro/source.htm So there you are. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy - or even Jung's. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
