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>"The realization that the normal distribution is not the only way to model data". Realization by who? If you understand the normal distribution you had damn

>"The realization that the normal distribution is not the only way to model data". Realization by who? If you understand the normal distribution you had damn well better know that there are other probability distributions. >The problem of course is that the Cauchy distribution is pathological in that it doesn't have a mean or variance, you can calculate similar properties for it (location and scale), but it doesn't obey the central limit theorem so in practice it can be very strange to work with. In other words, we're using the normal distribution as the workhorse because considering other distributions is, well, inefficient/unproductive. > However a great amount of future progress is going to come from wrestling with more challenging distributions, and paying more attention to when assumptions of normality need to be questioned What exactly is it that you think physicists have been doing for the past half century? The error accounting for CERN's experiments requires actual millions of PhD-hours. This topic's conversation is at some bizarre intersection of good intentions, concrete knowledge, and woeful ignorance. I guess I tar myself with that brush.

jerf 13y ago
"Realization by who? If you understand the normal distribution you had damn well better know that there are other probability distributions." See Glyptodon's post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7065067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7065067 If you hang out with mathematicians, yeah, sure, everybody knows there's a ton of distributions. Try hanging out with, say, biologists. The undergrad statistics education is basically "mumble mumble guassian mumble hideous equations mumble mumble YOU MUST DO THE CHI-SQUARED TEST mumble mumble poisson mumble hideous equations mumble YOU MUST DO THE CHI-SQUARED TEST mumble mumble CHI mumble calculus is hard mumble mumble NULL HYPOTHESIS mumble CHI CHI CHI WE WILL DRUM YOU OUT OF THIS DISCIPLINE IN DISGRACE IF YOU DON'T DO THE CHI-SQUARED TEST". I'm hardly even exaggerating! I remember being asked by someone in their third semester of using the damn test what it actually meant. Nominally, yes, the Poisson and probably a couple of others were mentioned, but believe me, the ALL CAPS part of the education does not mention them.
- Helianthus 13y ago
  "A general science education needs far firmer statistical grounding" doesn't equate to "The standard deviation should be retired."
  - jerf 13y ago
    I was establishing that there are plenty of people who don't really realize there are other distributions. You seem to be having some trouble reading what I'm writing, rather than what you think I should be writing.
    - Helianthus 13y ago
      >I was establishing that there are plenty of people who don't really realize there are other distributions. Something I never contested. From Glyptodon: >>"This is std dev. This is how you compute it. Make sure you put it your tables and report." >>it wasn't always a sensible thing to be asked to calculate but was instead just an instinctive requirement. I hate to break it to you, but this is how rote mathematics is taught. You can't communicate concepts purely, and hammering instinctive math is better than no math at all. To reiterate, there's nothing wrong with the normal distribution. We're not about to retire addition or subtraction just because there are "plenty of people who don't really realize" there's more to math. >You seem to be having some trouble reading what I'm writing, rather than what you think I should be writing. Sure whatever, same to you.

jerf 13y ago

"Realization by who? If you understand the normal distribution you had damn well better know that there are other probability distributions." See Glyptodon's post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7065067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7065067 If you hang out with mathematicians, yeah, sure, everybody knows there's a ton of distributions. Try hanging out with, say, biologists. The undergrad statistics education is basically "mumble mumble guassian mumble hideous equations mumble mumble YOU MUST DO THE CHI-SQUARED TEST mumble mumble poisson mumble hideous equations mumble YOU MUST DO THE CHI-SQUARED TEST mumble mumble CHI mumble calculus is hard mumble mumble NULL HYPOTHESIS mumble CHI CHI CHI WE WILL DRUM YOU OUT OF THIS DISCIPLINE IN DISGRACE IF YOU DON'T DO THE CHI-SQUARED TEST". I'm hardly even exaggerating! I remember being asked by someone in their third semester of using the damn test what it actually meant. Nominally, yes, the Poisson and probably a couple of others were mentioned, but believe me, the ALL CAPS part of the education does not mention them.

Helianthus 13y ago
"A general science education needs far firmer statistical grounding" doesn't equate to "The standard deviation should be retired."
- jerf 13y ago
  I was establishing that there are plenty of people who don't really realize there are other distributions. You seem to be having some trouble reading what I'm writing, rather than what you think I should be writing.
  - Helianthus 13y ago
    >I was establishing that there are plenty of people who don't really realize there are other distributions. Something I never contested. From Glyptodon: >>"This is std dev. This is how you compute it. Make sure you put it your tables and report." >>it wasn't always a sensible thing to be asked to calculate but was instead just an instinctive requirement. I hate to break it to you, but this is how rote mathematics is taught. You can't communicate concepts purely, and hammering instinctive math is better than no math at all. To reiterate, there's nothing wrong with the normal distribution. We're not about to retire addition or subtraction just because there are "plenty of people who don't really realize" there's more to math. >You seem to be having some trouble reading what I'm writing, rather than what you think I should be writing. Sure whatever, same to you.