Friday, April 11, 2008 8:53:57 AM
You evidently still don’t understand the mathematical concept of program-survival bias even after myriad attempts have been made to explain it to you. (Are you really a professional mathematician?)
Dew - "Program-survival bias" is a trivial statistical statement about the overall population of trials. It can only tell you the shape of a thing before you decide to examine it in details. But, for any one data point, other domain-specific considerations including particular statistical measures could be applied to see if the data point on hand means what it means. Such considerations then give a different type of certainty estimate about the data. Does this make sense to you or perhaps too subtle?
An analogue of your frequently touted (by yourself) principle is what I call the broken glass principle. Given the abundance of broken glassware since the past several centuries, if you see a shiny object on the beach, be careful that it might not have any value. Instead you should think hard about it before starting to jump up and down - especially if there are an abundance of sharp looking such objects on the ground.
On the other hand, let's say you pick up a shiny object on the beach that is attached to some sort of a ring and you decide that it might be worth looking into. The broken glass principle says that you could now try some other techniques other than your eyes and fingers: physical, chemical and indeed even social(let a few jewelers take a look at it and see if they salivate) to see if the object is consistent with being something other than just a piece of glass.
The broken glass principle is rather deep as it applies to itself recursively and also to other similar principles such as yours. It tells us not to confuse impression with examination.
So, that's a long answer to your question. And, as a bonus, my broken glass principle actually lends evidence to a common folk wisdom: Do not throw figurative stones at a purported mathematician while you live in a mental house of glass. You will only contribute to the future of my broken glassware principle
.
Dew - "Program-survival bias" is a trivial statistical statement about the overall population of trials. It can only tell you the shape of a thing before you decide to examine it in details. But, for any one data point, other domain-specific considerations including particular statistical measures could be applied to see if the data point on hand means what it means. Such considerations then give a different type of certainty estimate about the data. Does this make sense to you or perhaps too subtle?
An analogue of your frequently touted (by yourself) principle is what I call the broken glass principle. Given the abundance of broken glassware since the past several centuries, if you see a shiny object on the beach, be careful that it might not have any value. Instead you should think hard about it before starting to jump up and down - especially if there are an abundance of sharp looking such objects on the ground.
On the other hand, let's say you pick up a shiny object on the beach that is attached to some sort of a ring and you decide that it might be worth looking into. The broken glass principle says that you could now try some other techniques other than your eyes and fingers: physical, chemical and indeed even social(let a few jewelers take a look at it and see if they salivate) to see if the object is consistent with being something other than just a piece of glass.
The broken glass principle is rather deep as it applies to itself recursively and also to other similar principles such as yours. It tells us not to confuse impression with examination.
So, that's a long answer to your question. And, as a bonus, my broken glass principle actually lends evidence to a common folk wisdom: Do not throw figurative stones at a purported mathematician while you live in a mental house of glass. You will only contribute to the future of my broken glassware principle
.
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