3 ms·

Thanks for explaining! This stretching to infinity is interesting, because it assigns a probability to outcomes even if they cannot happen, for example where ob

by dxdm 2y ago

Thanks for explaining! This stretching to infinity is interesting, because it assigns a probability to outcomes even if they cannot happen, for example where observed values cannot go negative like here. That shows the difference between the "model" and the reality we try to fit it on; and that the model is a tool that just needs to fit well enough to be useful.

pdpi 2y ago
Yeah, it’s very much a case of “the map is not the territory”. Modelling such processes as normally distributed is objectively wrong, but it’s also not wrong enough to matter. We could, and arguably should, model such processes as truncated normals instead, but normals are just so damn convenient to work with.
- baq 2y ago
  You say 'convenience' and I don't know if it's a strong enough word - the gap in difficulty between working with normals and anything else is like in the draw the rest of the owl meme - it's so wide nobody ever bothers.