Lines that annoy you most

[Selene Gregoire]

10 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

No, statistics.  This is why spam e-mailers and all those clowns who robocall your phone are in business. It's very difficult to predict the one or two suckers out of a thousand who might fall for your scam.  However, if you contact 1000 people at random, you can be pretty sure that one or two of them will. If you have time on your hands and communication is cheap, 0.1% or less is still a pretty decent return.  There's always someone ready to believe in Nigerian princes.

You do not want to know what I really think about statistics.

There will always be gullible people. Regardless of what statistics may or may not reflect.

Any bookkeeper knows it's easy to crunch numbers. It's not so easy to have those numbers stand up to scrutiny. 

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, Selene Gregoire said:

There will always be gullible people. Regardless of what statistics may or may not reflect.

That's exactly the point of the statistics.  No matter how unlikely an event is, if you wait long enough, there's always some sucker out there who will fall for it.  P.T. Barnum and Doug Adams were right.

[Selene Gregoire]

29 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

That's exactly the point of the statistics.  No matter how unlikely an event is, if you wait long enough, there's always some sucker out there who will fall for it.  P.T. Barnum and Doug Adams were right.

That was true long before statistics were ever invented. The stats only confirm it.

[Rolig Loon]

8 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

That was true long before statistics were ever invented. The stats only confirm it.

Of course.  That's what statistics is for, putting a number on what otherwise might be a "gut feeling" or "common sense", or might be overlooked entirely.  Some people persist in believing in magic or luck when they see improbable things happen, like massive floods or airplanes falling out of the sky, or BillyBob winning the SuperMega Lottery.  Statistics helps you not only see that improbable links can happen but also see exactly how improbable they are.  Without statistics, we'd never be able to get a handle on how likely it is that a smoker will get lung cancer or how frequently I can expect my river town to have a major flood.

[Janet Voxel]

6 hours ago, AyelaNewLife said:

I kinda get it if I'm honest, even if it's obnoxious to be on the receiving end of that approach. It's like throwing a bucket of darts at a dartboard - his success rate might be abysmal, but that one accidental bullseye validates his methods. 

I say that all the time. It must be working on someone.

Also, the only way you’ll know is if you’re somewhere with a friend and you share (which we often do).

Edited March 28, 2019 by janetosilio

[Madelaine McMasters]

5 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

airplanes anvils falling out of the sky

 

[Selene Gregoire]

9 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Of course.  That's what statistics is for, putting a number on what otherwise might be a "gut feeling" or "common sense", or might be overlooked entirely.  Some people persist in believing in magic or luck when they see improbable things happen, like massive floods or airplanes falling out of the sky, or BillyBob winning the SuperMega Lottery.  Statistics helps you not only see that improbable links can happen but also see exactly how improbable they are.  Without statistics, we'd never be able to get a handle on how likely it is that a smoker will get lung cancer or how frequently I can expect my river town to have a major flood.

Like I said, you don't really want to know what I think about statistics. Suffice it to say, I have never needed statistics to back up what I already know to be true. That isn't likely to change.

Edited March 28, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[Selene Gregoire]

 

7 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

airplanes anvils falling out of the sky

 

 

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Like I said, you don't really want to know what I think about statistics. Suffice it to say, I have never needed statistics to back up what I already know to be true. That isn't likely to change.

I try to keep a healthy skepticism over "what I already know to be true", and statistics are an important part of my toolkit. While I admit that my long held beliefs are unlikely to change, I hope I'm open to the possibility.

[Selene Gregoire]

4 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I try to keep a healthy skepticism over "what I already know to be true", and statistics are an important part of my toolkit. While I admit that my long held beliefs are unlikely to change, I hope I'm open to the possibility.

You're an engineer. I'm not. I just had the misfortune to be raised in a family of them. 

[Love Zhaoying]

Heinlein and others called it “sadistics”.

[Rolig Loon]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Heinlein and others called it “sadistics”.

Heh He's right. ...  Statistics is like any other tool.  It can easily be misused and even more easily misunderstood.  That's why most scientists and engineers are very skeptical people.  The more they understand about how any tool works, the more aware they are when it feeds them unexpected results and the more they worry when it feeds them only the expected results.  I have long favored making basic statistics a freshman-level requirement in college, if only because it's harder to pull the wool over the eyes of a well-educated and skeptical public.

[Love Zhaoying]

Another quote (who?), “There’s lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

Statistics is like any other tool.  It can easily be misused and even more easily misunderstood.

I consulted on two medical device development projects in which the principals, having no formal training in statistics, had used SPSS to convince themselves they were succeeding. They were initially unhappy with me, but eventually decided I was a better firing squad than potential future investors.

[Rolig Loon]

[Jerilynn Lemon]

8 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

 ...or BillyBob winning the SuperMega Lottery. 

Statistics would show that some will consider that statement to be sexist.

[Rolig Loon]

25 minutes ago, Jerilynn Lemon said:

Statistics would show that some will consider that statement to be sexist.

That's a very good point, with or without the statistics.  At best, it's a distraction.

[BelindaN]

All that matters is you keep an open mind. A few of my close friends have what amounts to a binary belief ethos, and won't budge from their position.

Even when I use the flat earth example, which was once an absolute. Only an open mind could lead to the truth.......

It amazes me that wifi is invisible. It amazes me that I can zap my car alarm through glass. It amazes me that holding the keyfob against ny head increases the range...(try it). It amazes me to watch stuff about quantum physics and that all this is going on "invisibly". 

So I have an active enquiring open mind about everything. Maybe that's for my profile!🤔

[Love Zhaoying]

16 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I consulted on two medical device development projects in which the principals, having no formal training in statistics, had used SPSS to convince themselves they were succeeding. They were initially unhappy with me, but eventually decided I was a better firing squad than potential future investors.

Before I got my current job, I was sent on a cold interview with a defibrillator / pacemaker company for QA. No way I would want that job..fast forward 22 years, read in news that one company’s devices use unsecured WiFi so are subject to hacking.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Love Zhaoying

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, BelindaN said:

It amazes me that wifi is invisible. It amazes me that I can zap my car alarm through glass. It amazes me that holding the keyfob against ny head increases the range...(try it). It amazes me to watch stuff about quantum physics and that all this is going on "invisibly". 

So I have an active enquiring open mind about everything.

Do you believe it's possible that realities exist which cannot be measured? Or that will never be able to be measured by the human mind?

[Luna Bliss]

I just watched part of a disturbing show on Netflix, a documentary about the missing child of the tourists from the UK on vacation in Portugal. The confirmation bias of the investigating police, and confusion over what scientific tests should be used as evidence was astounding. And the misery they caused those poor parents as they were falsely accused of the murder of their daughter was hard to watch.
People, even scientists, simply can't be objective -- but scientists often think they are more objective than the rest of us. That's a big problem.
I have a healthy respect for Science -- my father had a degree in engineering, and I made an A in graduate level statistics (probably a softer class geered toward the social sciences though). I let experiments inform my decisions about reality, while knowing they are fallible. But there are limits...

[BelindaN]

2 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Do you believe it's possible that realities exist which cannot be measured? Or that will never be able to be measured by the human mind?

A good question, and one which certainly has possibilities. I think our reality is bound by human perception. Such as the visible spectrum. It's now generally accepted that space time is intertwined. On Star Trek they had 'Sub Space', so I consider the unknown space-time-quantum world to be just that!

We've also had our share of supernatural experiences, and whatever is going on, it's outside normal reality. So yeah, I have an open mind on everything, unlike some of my friends who stubbornly refuse to even consider anything beyond accepted reality. I suppose I'm a bit of a geek, but I watch a lot of science programmes!

[Madelaine McMasters]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Before I got my current job, I was sent on a cold interview with a defibrillator / pacemaker company for QA. No way I would want that job..fast forward 22 years, read in news that one company’s devices use unsecured WiFi so are subject to hacking.

I started out in QA/QC during my internship, and moved into design shortly thereafter. My third big project was a defibrillator. Designing it was great fun. Half the joy of design is imagining all the ways stuff can go wrong and minimizing any resulting harm. I was at the tail end of the era in which such projects could be comprehended by a single human mind. Every line of code in that defibrillator was written by two people, one of them me.

Now there is so much technology involved (like Wi-Fi) that nobody can understand it all. For that reason, it's more important than ever to have wary people in QA/QC, particularly during design.

4 hours ago, BelindaN said:

It amazes me that wifi is invisible. It amazes me that I can zap my car alarm through glass. It amazes me that holding the keyfob against ny head increases the range...(try it). It amazes me to watch stuff about quantum physics and that all this is going on "invisibly". 

I love Richard's opening to this discussion, admitting that if the girl was pretty enough, he'd not be able to think about much else. Even Nobel laureates are human.

2 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Do you believe it's possible that realities exist which cannot be measured? Or that will never be able to be measured by the human mind?

Yes!

[Donna Underall]

3 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Do you believe it's possible that realities exist which cannot be measured? Or that will never be able to be measured by the human mind?

Cannot be measured?  No, I don't think so.  Cannot be perceived by humans?  Yes, certainly.  Bees see farther into the ultraviolet than we do and we see farther into the red than they do.  Maybe if we build machines to see farther into the areas we know about, and later build machines that can see into areas we don't yet know about, we will measure more and more of the unknown.  That's what I think!

[Madelaine McMasters]

Just now, Donna Underall said:

Cannot be measured?  No, I don't think so.  Cannot be perceived by humans?  Yes, certainly.  Bees see farther into the ultraviolet than we do and we see farther into the red than they do.  Maybe if we build machines to see farther into the areas we know about, and later build machines that can see into areas we don't yet know about, we will measure more and more of the unknown.  That's what I think!

Perhaps the most annoying aspect of String Theory (and the multiverse stuff that springs from it) is the inability to test it. The theory proposes hidden dimensions so small (smaller than the Planck length) that we can't measure them (thank's a lot, Werner Heisenberg). Other universes mighty occupy the same three physical dimensions as us, but separated along one or more of those other hidden dimensions and therefore truly undetectable.

If every one of the potential cohabitating universes is similarly isolated (as String Theory suggests), there's no practical difference to them not existing at all.