3 ms·
Note that that's 40 wallets in each of 6 categories; the total number was 240. If half of all wallets get returned, then the variance of the number returned is
by gjm11 17y ago
Note that that's 40 wallets in each of 6 categories; the total number was 240.
If half of all wallets get returned, then the variance of the number returned is on the order of 40 * 1/2 * (1-1/2) = 10, which means a standard deviation on the order of 3 wallets returned, or ~ 8% return rate. So the "puppy" and "family" figures might be out by about that much.
The cute-baby category had a measured return rate of 88%, which means a variance of something like 40 * 0.88 * 0.12~=4.2, for a standard deviation of ~ 2 wallets or about 5% in the return rate.
So if these results are unlucky to the tune of two 2-sigma errors pointing in the "right" direction, the puppy category might really be as good as 69%, and the baby category might really be as bad as 78%.
So, at least as far as simple sampling error goes, the "baby beats puppies" result seems pretty robust.
(No need to tell me about all the oversimplifications in the above. I know.)
- 3pt14159 17y agoI sympathize with what you are trying to do, but you are right when you say oversimplifications abound. I do Market/Business Intelligence for a living. I repeatably see the results of split tests change drastically after 100 results per option come in, I have even seen 1000 samples per option change. Human beings don't always fit into a nice standard deviation. A holiday, or the weather, or unknown variable X will just go ahead and mess everything up for you. Sure, if I had to make a decision based JUST on this data I would keep a baby instead of a puppy, but I wouldn't be nearly as confident as the article writer is.