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Can we just stick to the technical facts? I think that would be a more productive conversation. Specifically, your argument rests on the the invalidity of "Amo

Can we just stick to the technical facts? I think that would be a more productive conversation. Specifically, your argument rests on the the invalidity of "Among high-legibility fonts, a study found 35% difference in reading speeds between the best and the worst." And the reasoning you give, is that because it's comparable to this metaphor you wrote, "An understandable explanation: imagine having 5 dice. You roll each die 4 times, then compare the highest sum to the lowest sum. Then you report that the highest die rolls 35% higher than the lowest. This is what the authors did, with each die being a font. But the experiment does not actually show evidence of any difference. If you rolled 500 dice, this method could claim that the highest dice are 200% higher than the lowest, even though all dice are still equal." It seems to me then, that the metaphor doesn't match the method in the original article. A more accurate metaphor would be (and I've taken the liberty to revise your text where my change is in brackets, if you don't mind): An understandable explanation: imagine having 5 dice. You roll each die 4 times, then compare the highest sum to the lowest sum. Then you report that the highest die rolls 35% higher than the lowest. [Then you repeat whole previous procedure 352 times (352 is the number of participants reported). On average over all participants, the highest die is 35% higher than the lowest with some modest variation. So you claim that there is a 35% variation between the highest die and the lowest die for individuals.] Seems much more reasonable doesn't it?

ad8e 4y ago
As everything you've written is in good faith and aspiring to contribute, I too am willing to respond in this cooperative manner to you. Your changed metaphor is fine. However, the origin of the method to produce 35% was already faulty, so the increased accuracy by repeating this experiment 352 times does not help, since it is repeating a faulty experiment. To make this intuitive, imagine having 1000 dice, each rolled only once. Now the highest roll will be 6 and the lowest roll will be 1, because you've rolled so many dice that you are sure to hit every number. Thus, the highest is 500% higher than the lowest. If we repeat this 352 times, the average over all participants will still be 500%. However, it is not an indication that we have biased dice.

ad8e 4y ago

As everything you've written is in good faith and aspiring to contribute, I too am willing to respond in this cooperative manner to you. Your changed metaphor is fine. However, the origin of the method to produce 35% was already faulty, so the increased accuracy by repeating this experiment 352 times does not help, since it is repeating a faulty experiment. To make this intuitive, imagine having 1000 dice, each rolled only once. Now the highest roll will be 6 and the lowest roll will be 1, because you've rolled so many dice that you are sure to hit every number. Thus, the highest is 500% higher than the lowest. If we repeat this 352 times, the average over all participants will still be 500%. However, it is not an indication that we have biased dice.