The GOP's Worst Nightmare

[Dinner]

Reagon did the same thing Bush is currently doing. He massively increased deficit spending then tried to scapegoat Congress.

Anyone would be better then shrub.

[Ben Kenobi]

Spiffor:

That's a good point. If you don't take that approach then you need to increase your error bars.

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by Spiffor

It is easy to lie with stats, whatever the size of the sample. You can even lie with stats encompassing the whole population (such as election results). The key to lie with stats is to provide a faulty interpretation of the results, it doesn't lie in the results themselves.


Samples of 1000 - 2000 people are enough to measure societal trends when they are well done, because it has been often proven that larger samples repeat the same patterns. You can get a better accuracy with a higher sample (read: a smaller error margin), but that's it. General trends remain the same. The margin of error of a poll with 1000 people is about 3%. You need 4 times more people to halve the error margin. 4000 people make sense. 16000 people only in specialized polls. More than that is stupid.

In your example, royal flush would be deemed statistically insignificant, and as such, its complete absence from the results wouldn't make the trends any less true.

The only reason why you'd want to have a big sample is when you have many variables, and you want to analyze each of them with high accuracy.
For example, if you're polling on European politics, you only need a 1000 sample over Europe. However, if you want to analyze the differences per country, you need 1000 questionees per country (that's 15000 already). If you want to analyze the opinions of people based on their nationality AND their social class, you need a sample of 1000 per social class within each country. If you kept to the original 100 across Europe, to back you analysis of "what do wealthy Belgians think of Europe", you could only rely on very little amount (maybe 5 or 10) of wealthy Belgians questioned. Such a minuscule sample has virtually no relevance whatsoever.

Have you ever play pokar you would know that the Royal Flush it the best hand to have as it beat every other hands except than other Royal Flush, two royal flush are than tie.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by CharlesBHoff
Have you ever play pokar you would know that the Royal Flush it the best hand to have as it beat every other hands except than other Royal Flush, two royal flush are than tie.

Spiffor did an apt job of explaining your error.

My only point here is to use this:

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by CharlesBHoff
Have you ever play pokar you would know that the Royal Flush it the best hand to have as it beat every other hands except than other Royal Flush, two royal flush are than tie.

Yes, and since it happens once in every 300,000 games (or so you say), it is statistically insignificant when compared to the 299,999 other games when they don't happen. There is no need to look for royal flushes if they affect a poker game so mindboggingly rarely

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Yes, and since it happens once in every 300,000 games (or so you say), it is statistically insignificant when compared to the 299,999 other games when they don't happen. There is no need to look for royal flushes if they affect a poker game so mindboggingly rarely

That why if they are going to do DNA testing of people they need to look at entire DNA not just 7 little pieces of it. Let say there are two square with 1 billion little square of different colors in each one, to test if both big square are the same you needed to compare each little squares in each big square to each other to say they are the same, you just cannot pick 7 squares in each one and compare those seven square only.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by jimmytrick


Sure, you folks think Kerry has a chance. I think he better hold on to his senate seat.

You obviously haven't seen Kerry in action before... he's a master. He's won many elections that no one ever thought he would, like when he beat Weld for his senate seat.

Plus, Kerry is a seasoned statesman, he knows exactly what he's doing and he is very very very deliberate. If he wins I don't think there will ever be such a thing as a "Kerryism", he's just too damn smart for that, and he's too damn smart for a potential Bush-Kerry election to be anything but close, if not a landslide for Kerry.

Just wait.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Reagon did the same thing Bush is currently doing. He massively increased deficit spending then tried to scapegoat Congress.

Anyone would be better then shrub.

No, Reagan massively cut taxes and ignited the longest sustained period of economic growth in US history -- until Bush raised taxes and caused a mild recession!

Oerdin, I thought you were a sensible person.

[Ned]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn



You obviously haven't seen Kerry in action before... he's a master. He's won many elections that no one ever thought he would, like when he beat Weld for his senate seat.

Plus, Kerry is a seasoned statesman, he knows exactly what he's doing and he is very very very deliberate. If he wins I don't think there will ever be such a thing as a "Kerryism", he's just too damn smart for that, and he's too damn smart for a potential Bush-Kerry election to be anything but close, if not a landslide for Kerry.

Just wait.

Kerry does seem smooth. However, he also seems to be the most corrupt Senator on the Hill.

We shall see whether THIS time people will vote for a person of known corruption problems. If California is any example, people are sick and tired of corrupt politicians.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Ned


Kerry does seem smooth. However, he also seems to be the most corrupt Senator on the Hill.

That honor actually goes to either Breaux (D-La) or Cornyn (R-Tx).

[Ned]

Originally posted by The Templar


That honor actually goes to either Breaux (D-La) or Cornyn (R-Tx).

Perhaps. But when it appears that Kerry rakes in more special interest money than anyone else, I give him the prize.

Special interests are not stupid, after all.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Ned


Perhaps. But when it appears that Kerry rakes in more special interest money than anyone else, I give him the prize.

Special interests are not stupid, after all.

What you are saying then is that Kerry is more expensive for special interests to hire. (BTW, I hate the phrase 'special interest' - which interests?)

The petrochem and sugar industries get alot of bang for the buck out of Breaux.

Cornyn is just a nut. All the nonsense he pulled in Tx as attorney general - let industry pollute at will, but don't get caught being black in Tulia ...

By comparison, Kerry is a very inefficient means of getting special legislation.

[Ned]

The Templar, well, maybe you are right.

Kerry's effort to become president seems linked with ambition to become extremely rich.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Reagon did the same thing Bush is currently doing. He massively increased deficit spending then tried to scapegoat Congress.

Anyone would be better then shrub.

Bush will have a lot harder time getting away with this since his own party controls congress, which wasn't the case back under Reagan.

No, Reagan massively cut taxes and ignited the longest sustained period of economic growth in US history

[Ned]

Boshko, apparently you are in denial while Oerdin appears mainly to be uniformed.