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Lying With Statistics
- iamwil 17y agoI didn't know about the very last one about average annual returns being multiplied instead of added, but it makes sense, now that I think about it.
- billswift 17y agoI read Huff's "How to Lie with Statistics" a couple of decades ago. It's a real eye opener, as well as being a short, easy read.
- paulbaumgart 17y ago"Have you ever heard the announcer say that the batter has struck out 10 times in a row and is "due" for a hit? Same fallacy. Each at-bat is an independent trial; previous attempts have no influence on the current one. The probability of a hit is just the same as before. If this batter is striking out a lot, maybe the batting coach had better get busy!" Independent? Maybe if the batter is a robot with anterograde amnesia, but otherwise this is really a poor example of probabilistic independence. :-)