Philosophically this issue is more important. Does "random" just mean ignorance of the mechanisms involved in determining the outcome (and ignorance of the current states of those mechanisms). In the absence of ignorance, would anything be random?
Cheers, [Karl L. Wuensch]<http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/wuenschk/klw.htm> From: Jeffry Ricker, Ph.D. [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2015 3:37 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Are coin tosses random? On Feb 28, 2015, at 6:28 PM, Jim Clark <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: One lesson I take away from Jeff`s original post (i.e., that even a simple coin toss probability is a challenge to determine) is that we should not worry too much by such minutia as whether all the abstract assumptions for statistical tests are met. The real world is so messy that such contributions to the correctness of our conclusions are probably minimal and in an uncertain direction. Yes, that's an excellent point. I also was thinking about several other issues that these studies might help to clarify for students. One is the issue of internal versus external validity (and yes, ecological validity also could be mentioned, although that isn't what concerns me with coin tossing). Based on what I was able to understand of their conclusions, both groups of researchers seemed to be stating that their findings had high internal validity, but they didn't think they would generalize to the types of situations in which coins typically are tossed. I thought this would be an easy-to-understand example to use when I discuss validity-as long as I leave the math out!!! Best, -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeffry Ricker, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scottsdale Community College 9000 E. Chaparral Road Scottsdale, AZ 85256-2626 Office: SB-123 Phone: (480) 423-6213 Fax: (480) 423-6298 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b3534420e&n=T&l=tips&o=42397 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-42397-13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b35344...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-42397-13060.c78b93d4d09ef6235e9d494b35344...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=42403 or send a blank email to leave-42403-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
