Re: Boy Scouts make people nervous

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:41:10 -0700, hal wrote:

<sigh> "Normal distribution" and "50-50" are not the same thing. A
normal distribution neither needs nor implies a 50-50 probability.

Now that would depend on your number of possible outcomes, wouldn't
it?

No. No it doesn't. The distribution depends on the data set, NOT THE
NUMBER OF POSSIBLE OUTCOMES. The two things are simply UNRELATED.


The
_only_ thing a normal distribution requires is that the individual elements
be independent. In a "coin toss" type experiment that condition of
independence is that the probability of the second coin flip coming up heads
does not change whether the first comes up heads or tails.

So what's the normal distribution of a mutually exclusive two outcome
event over a very large sample?

Unknown. When there is no information known about the population set then
you DON'T KNOW what the distribution is, regardless of size of the data
set. Size of the data set only impacts the weighting of outlaying
"fliers" as it were. *That* is why larger data sets are more desirable.
Because it reduces the relative weight of any particular data point and
thus skewing data points are driven towards their proper perspective.

(IH)
.

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