Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7200209" data-attributes="member: 16814">No... your sample size is the 12 men.  You can't just say that sample sizes are whatever works best for your result -- the data is the data.  And, if you're omitting outliers, then you're still presenting a fallacy -- you're now saying that the sample was men who were tall and there was no brownie.Averages are NOT the data -- and, since they're not the data you can reach fallacious conclusions using averages.  Statistics are not the truth, although they can be useful sometimes.  Being 100% aware of the fact statistics don't measure data they measure the model of your data, including all of the assumptions you've built into your model, is critical to avoiding the trap of lying to yourself with statistics.Example:  I build a model of GWM ignoring advantage and crits and maneuvers and multiclassing and only at AC 12 with 13th level characters with 20 STR and +1 weapons.  I get an average that proves, conclusively, that GWM is better than a longsword.  The law of averages doesn't mean jack, here, despite me having an average.  And no one in this thread believes for a moment that my model, and it's assumptions, actually shows how it is.  And so it goes.  You may have a better model than mine, but averages aren't your friend any more than they were mine.  The law of averages is just another statistical structure, built on it's own assumptions.  Forget those assumptions at peril of lying to yourself and becoming overconfident in your answers.</blockquote>

Verification