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> I'm not sure what statement you're making here. The statement I'm making is that you can simply brush off every scientific study by saying "yeah, that's just

> I'm not sure what statement you're making here. The statement I'm making is that you can simply brush off every scientific study by saying "yeah, that's just random chance, don't worry about it". The way that you're looking at this is completely backwards. If the data shows something incredibly unlikely happened, that means we should re-evaluate our assumptions. > Let me pose the question to you. You are given a fair two-sided coin. You flip the coin 1000 times. 875 of the flips turn up heads. Is the coin biased? Probably.

coherentpony 12y ago
>The statement I'm making is that you can simply brush off every scientific study by saying "yeah, that's just random chance, don't worry about it". That is not what I was doing, and that is not true. Scientific studies involving statistics and probability, when done properly, are sound. Quantifying uncertainty is a big deal, and when you can do it you can make very solid conclusions. Are there perturbations due to random chance? Sure. That doesn't mean you can always brush them off. >If the data shows something incredibly unlikely happened, that means we should re-evaluate our assumptions. Absolutely agree with you here. My point was it is crucial that you document what you believe about the problem at hand. If you believe something is not true, it is not usually assumed to be true. >> Let me pose the question to you. You are given a fair two-sided coin. You flip the coin 1000 times. 875 of the flips turn up heads. Is the coin biased? >Probably. You are incorrect. The event that occurred was just very unlikely. I can tell you that with complete certainty because you were given a fair coin and you knew that information. If, on the other hand, you didn't know whether or not the coin was fair, then you would be correct (but that wasn't the case).

coherentpony 12y ago

>The statement I'm making is that you can simply brush off every scientific study by saying "yeah, that's just random chance, don't worry about it". That is not what I was doing, and that is not true. Scientific studies involving statistics and probability, when done properly, are sound. Quantifying uncertainty is a big deal, and when you can do it you can make very solid conclusions. Are there perturbations due to random chance? Sure. That doesn't mean you can always brush them off. >If the data shows something incredibly unlikely happened, that means we should re-evaluate our assumptions. Absolutely agree with you here. My point was it is crucial that you document what you believe about the problem at hand. If you believe something is not true, it is not usually assumed to be true. >> Let me pose the question to you. You are given a fair two-sided coin. You flip the coin 1000 times. 875 of the flips turn up heads. Is the coin biased? >Probably. You are incorrect. The event that occurred was just very unlikely. I can tell you that with complete certainty because you were given a fair coin and you knew that information. If, on the other hand, you didn't know whether or not the coin was fair, then you would be correct (but that wasn't the case).