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Old 05-13-2008, 05:57 PM   #83
Evenstar
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jrc View Post
Sorry I didn't know that spelling counted. I'm not very good at spelling, typing or grammar, feel free to make fun of me. Adults know they have weaknesses.
I honestly was not trying to make fun of you at all - I was just pointing out the proper spelling, as that's the way that my spell checker corrected it. I meant no harm.

Quote:
The simplest thing is common sense. You cannot assume that the population of boats has a uniform distribution. That means that there are not always the same number of boats on the lake during daylight hours, your analysis assumes there are.
If the study was done properly, it would have been done in the areas of the lake that represented the overall condition found on the entire lake. I have to assume this is the case to do the analysis - what would you have me do, guess?

Quote:
How can you make assumptions about a population from a sample without understanding that your assumption has a probabilty attached to it? When the polls say Clinton is ahead of Obama by 10% they always say something like with a 3% margin. That's a probablility.
Yes, it is called margin of error - and I've commented on this a number of times (I call this a statistical factor - you call it probability, language is my weakness, so I may very well be using the wrong word here).

As I have stated before, the report on the speed study did not give the margin of error - which in itself makes the data meaningless. Yet when I pointed that out, the speed limit opponents here jumped all over me. Claiming that I was just finding fault with the study because it didn't support the need for a speed limit.

Look, you either accept the study as valid or not. If you accept it as valid, then you have to use the raw data from it and plug it back into the environment. My analysis is only as accurate as the study - which I don't feel was done in a way that resulted in any usable data. But my analysis is still correct for the data that was given.
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