5 ms·

The Type I and Type II errors is especially hurtful to me: I am totally unable to remember which is which and each time I read an article containing them I thin

The Type I and Type II errors is especially hurtful to me: I am totally unable to remember which is which and each time I read an article containing them I think: well, I am probably going to get it wrong again but I cannot bother to check the definition one more time... who cares?

FabHK 8y ago
In particular when one could just call them "false acceptance of null" and "false rejection of null", and abbreviate it to FAN and FRN, or so. How hard is that.
- pfortuny 8y ago
  False {posi,nega}tive Type II? error just 2 chars...........
whooshee 8y ago
Same here, and some definitions named by people's names. I totally understand the need to attribute and respect people's work, but a more descriptive name is almost always easier to remember and talk about.
- jerf 8y ago
  This one at least has the justification that there often aren't any words. When you're hip-deep in topology, grabbing graph theory with your right hand and algebra with your left, you've left English way behind anyhow. Now we just need to go back in time and convince Euler and Grothendieck to pretty-please either discover fewer things, or change their names every couple of years or something.
  - vharuck 8y ago
    How about including given names with everything named after one of the many Bernoullis? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli_family https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli_family
- UnFleshedOne 8y ago
  Descriptive names, even when possible, translate very poorly to other languages.
nabla9 8y ago
The concepts and numbers and letters describing them are perfectly ordered. H0 H1 alpha beta Type I Type II Because error is negation of truth, you get H1 result with Type I error.
- jhayward 8y ago
  You say this as though it were helpful.
  - jhayward 8y ago
    Too late to edit the above, but this reminded me of the infamous in-joke about category theory use in Haskell: "A monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors. What's the problem?" [1] [1] https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-...
    - new4thaccount 8y ago
      They interviewed one of the Rust main guys for Linux Format a few years ago. I think he said the exact same thing lol. On another note, I think I just met someone with both a power systems and functional programming background today. Small world :).
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
hannasanarion 8y ago
I don't understand why they need to be numbered at all. What's wrong with "False Positive" and "False Negative"? They even take less time to say.
- abecedarius 8y ago
  I have trouble with those too: they're a composition of false/true with positive/negative to denote whether a finding of yes/no is right/wrong, but I can never remember whether false/true corresponds to yes/no or to right/wrong. Just say things like "right yes" or "wrong no" and I'll understand. The only problem with that way of speaking is that it doesn't sound fancy.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    > Just say things like "right yes" or "wrong no" and I'll understand. Those have the same problem, don't they? I think you think you're replacing the positive/negative with right/wrong, but you're actually replacing the true/false. So, if you get a "wrong yes" result, is that "yes" supposed to be a good or bad thing? It's still ambiguous. Maybe "true good" or "false bad" are better... Then again, if both results are neither good or bad, then which is which? Maybe true/false positive/negative is indeed the less ambiguous. You just need to be clear on the question that's being answered. "Is there cancer?" "positive" means yes, "negative" means no.
    - abecedarius 8y ago
      We'd have to poll people to really know which terms are more easily remembered. But here's how I'm thinking of it: a test says yes or no: is the thing present or not? And right/wrong is the correctness of the test. I can't see people easily getting confused and thinking "wrong yes" means that a test correctly said that the thing is not there. Anyone would think it means that the test incorrectly said the thing is there (among all the four possible meanings we're concerned about). OTOH false and negative could each more easily mean either wrong or absent. But I may be wrong! This is only my best proposal.
  - 8y ago
jwilk 8y ago
"Sensitivity" and "specificity" are even worse: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14835 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14835 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14888 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14888
joker3 8y ago
You know the story of the boy who cried wolf? The villagers committed several type I errors first, and then a type II error second. (Yes, the terminology is stupid and should be changed. But as long as we're stuck with it, this helps.)
- Balgair 8y ago
  Wonderful mnemonic, thank you!
behnamoh 8y ago
I remembered them like this: Type I: True -> False Type II: False -> True Meaning something was True (H_0) and our results say it's False (Reject H_0), and vice versa.

FabHK 8y ago

In particular when one could just call them "false acceptance of null" and "false rejection of null", and abbreviate it to FAN and FRN, or so. How hard is that.

pfortuny 8y ago
False {posi,nega}tive Type II? error just 2 chars...........

whooshee 8y ago

Same here, and some definitions named by people's names. I totally understand the need to attribute and respect people's work, but a more descriptive name is almost always easier to remember and talk about.

jerf 8y ago
This one at least has the justification that there often aren't any words. When you're hip-deep in topology, grabbing graph theory with your right hand and algebra with your left, you've left English way behind anyhow. Now we just need to go back in time and convince Euler and Grothendieck to pretty-please either discover fewer things, or change their names every couple of years or something.
- vharuck 8y ago
  How about including given names with everything named after one of the many Bernoullis? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli_family https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli_family
UnFleshedOne 8y ago
Descriptive names, even when possible, translate very poorly to other languages.

nabla9 8y ago

The concepts and numbers and letters describing them are perfectly ordered. H0 H1 alpha beta Type I Type II Because error is negation of truth, you get H1 result with Type I error.

jhayward 8y ago
You say this as though it were helpful.
- jhayward 8y ago
  Too late to edit the above, but this reminded me of the infamous in-joke about category theory use in Haskell: "A monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors. What's the problem?" [1] [1] https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-...
  - new4thaccount 8y ago
    They interviewed one of the Rust main guys for Linux Format a few years ago. I think he said the exact same thing lol. On another note, I think I just met someone with both a power systems and functional programming background today. Small world :).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

hannasanarion 8y ago

I don't understand why they need to be numbered at all. What's wrong with "False Positive" and "False Negative"? They even take less time to say.

abecedarius 8y ago
I have trouble with those too: they're a composition of false/true with positive/negative to denote whether a finding of yes/no is right/wrong, but I can never remember whether false/true corresponds to yes/no or to right/wrong. Just say things like "right yes" or "wrong no" and I'll understand. The only problem with that way of speaking is that it doesn't sound fancy.
- jolmg 8y ago
  > Just say things like "right yes" or "wrong no" and I'll understand. Those have the same problem, don't they? I think you think you're replacing the positive/negative with right/wrong, but you're actually replacing the true/false. So, if you get a "wrong yes" result, is that "yes" supposed to be a good or bad thing? It's still ambiguous. Maybe "true good" or "false bad" are better... Then again, if both results are neither good or bad, then which is which? Maybe true/false positive/negative is indeed the less ambiguous. You just need to be clear on the question that's being answered. "Is there cancer?" "positive" means yes, "negative" means no.
  - abecedarius 8y ago
    We'd have to poll people to really know which terms are more easily remembered. But here's how I'm thinking of it: a test says yes or no: is the thing present or not? And right/wrong is the correctness of the test. I can't see people easily getting confused and thinking "wrong yes" means that a test correctly said that the thing is not there. Anyone would think it means that the test incorrectly said the thing is there (among all the four possible meanings we're concerned about). OTOH false and negative could each more easily mean either wrong or absent. But I may be wrong! This is only my best proposal.
- 8y ago

jwilk 8y ago

"Sensitivity" and "specificity" are even worse: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14835 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14835 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14888 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14888

joker3 8y ago

You know the story of the boy who cried wolf? The villagers committed several type I errors first, and then a type II error second. (Yes, the terminology is stupid and should be changed. But as long as we're stuck with it, this helps.)

Balgair 8y ago
Wonderful mnemonic, thank you!

behnamoh 8y ago

I remembered them like this: Type I: True -> False Type II: False -> True Meaning something was True (H_0) and our results say it's False (Reject H_0), and vice versa.