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This article is bollocks, though. It's a fit of highly unrepresentative data, not even a good one, but worse: it doesn't explain anything. If you take that mode

by tgv 3y ago

This article is bollocks, though. It's a fit of highly unrepresentative data, not even a good one, but worse: it doesn't explain anything. If you take that model seriously, Usain Bolt could have been anybody in the entire history of mankind.

wjnc 3y ago
There’s two types of people in the world: those that build models and those that complain about the models than have been built. Seriously though, Allen is an instructor. These are educational pieces to bring a spark of understanding and creativity to students. I don’t think he is aspiring on modeling the absolute truth in these posts. This piece has a learning about the working of non-normal distributions in sampling and reasoning about cut-off points.
dilawar 3y ago
"All models are wrong, some are useful." Heard it so many times during my Ph.D.
codeflo 3y ago
> If you take that model seriously, Usain Bolt could have been anybody in the entire history of mankind. No model is perfect, but I don’t have the slightest clue why you think that would follow.
- tgv 3y ago
  Because it fits by multiplying random variables. It cannot explain why records are improving, i.e. why Usain Bolt didn't live 100 years ago.
  - suavesito 3y ago
    It can explain it. Better training and better equipment are (at least) two variables that improve people timings. Maybe a century ago there was an Usain Bolt, just didn't had neither the proper training, nor equipment, and those low factors avoided better timings.
    - iLoveOncall 3y ago
      And nutrition of course.
    - tgv 3y ago
      Except the model was fitted on people from the same period in the same region. Also, Ethiopian runners would be a counterargument. It's just reading way too much in a model that probably was there before the data. Seeing how everybody defends it as "learning", the example was sought to be described by the model.
NavinF 3y ago
> If you take that model seriously, Usain Bolt could have been anybody in the entire history of mankind Wat. His model says that many factors have to be perfect for someone to be as fast as Usain Bolt. If anything, it implies the opposite of what you said

by tgv 3y ago

wjnc 3y ago

There’s two types of people in the world: those that build models and those that complain about the models than have been built. Seriously though, Allen is an instructor. These are educational pieces to bring a spark of understanding and creativity to students. I don’t think he is aspiring on modeling the absolute truth in these posts. This piece has a learning about the working of non-normal distributions in sampling and reasoning about cut-off points.

dilawar 3y ago

"All models are wrong, some are useful." Heard it so many times during my Ph.D.

codeflo 3y ago

> If you take that model seriously, Usain Bolt could have been anybody in the entire history of mankind. No model is perfect, but I don’t have the slightest clue why you think that would follow.

tgv 3y ago
Because it fits by multiplying random variables. It cannot explain why records are improving, i.e. why Usain Bolt didn't live 100 years ago.
- suavesito 3y ago
  It can explain it. Better training and better equipment are (at least) two variables that improve people timings. Maybe a century ago there was an Usain Bolt, just didn't had neither the proper training, nor equipment, and those low factors avoided better timings.
  - iLoveOncall 3y ago
    And nutrition of course.
  - tgv 3y ago
    Except the model was fitted on people from the same period in the same region. Also, Ethiopian runners would be a counterargument. It's just reading way too much in a model that probably was there before the data. Seeing how everybody defends it as "learning", the example was sought to be described by the model.

NavinF 3y ago

> If you take that model seriously, Usain Bolt could have been anybody in the entire history of mankind Wat. His model says that many factors have to be perfect for someone to be as fast as Usain Bolt. If anything, it implies the opposite of what you said