> Do read some experimental physics -- see what assumptions are made. lutusp, the way in which you are using the word "assumption" carries a very high risk th

> Do read some experimental physics -- see what assumptions are made. lutusp, the way in which you are using the word "assumption" carries a very high risk that people will misunderstand you. The critical point here is that the physicists are nowhere using the Normal distribution as a modeling assumption. They are not suggesting that the Normal distribution is a reasonable model for any real data generating process in their problem domain. They are simply using it as a scale, like Celsius of Fahrenheit. There's a crucial philosophical distinction there that, even if you get, your readers will not.