Orton's Arm

Here's the quote again: The quote directly addresses the phenomenon I've been describing. A correlation of 0 from one test to the next would imply the test results were obtained due entirely to random chance. A correlation of 1 would imply that test results were obtained due strictly to successful measurement. The Berkeley quote is implying the correlation between scores on a test and a retest is positive (it's measuring something innate) but less than one (there is measurement error involved). In situations like this, the phenomenon I've been describing predicts that those who obtained high scores on the first test will still be above-average upon being retested, but not by quite as much as their initial scores would indicate. That's also what the Berkeley quote said, and that's the phenomenon I've been trying to communicate to Ramius and Bungee Jumper these last 50 pages.

You're wasting your time. If he doesn't understand this phenomenon after having it explained to him for 50 pages, he's never going to get it.

Very often liberal spending programs do far more harm than good. Take LBJ's Great Society program. You could make more money on welfare than at a very low wage job. What did people in low wage jobs do? Exactly what you'd expect them to do: they quit. A long-term effect of this is that many people in welfare communities lost the culture of work. This made it harder to break the cycle of poverty. As though to ensure as many people were born into poverty as possible, the Great Society program included financial incentives for welfare recipients to have as many children as possible. And lest these children be born into stable, two-parent homes, welfare mothers were told they had to divorce their husbands if they expected to receive full welfare benefits. If a father had significant contact with his children after the divorce, he could expect to be punished for welfare fraud. Nor were these problems unique to LBJ's great society program. Ronald Reagan wrote about how his father was a diehard Democrat. As such, Reagan's father was awarded a local position involving the distribution of New Deal government benefits. Reagan saw firsthand how these programs often discouraged people from finding short-term work. Whatever happened to the harmful incentives created by the Great Society program? They were reformed by California's Republican governor Ronald Reagan back in the 1970s, and by the Republican Congress in the 1990s. Not only did liberal Democrats create massive problems with their wasteful and harmful social programs, they took little interest in solving those problems once the problems manifested themselves. It'd be less of a disaster for bin Laden to get an atomic bomb than for New Deal or Great Society liberals to get hold of government power.

You are aware that you're ridiculing a quote from Berkeley, right? You've been acting like an ignorant loudmouth throughout the regression toward the mean debate, but this takes the cake.

You're giving Bungee Jumper entirely too much credit. Consider the I.Q. test score example, which I've repeatedly given, and which he's repeatedly ridiculed. Take someone who scored a 140 on an I.Q. test. This person could be a true 140, a lucky 130, or an unlucky 150. Of the latter two possibilities, the lucky 130 one is more likely than the unlucky 150 one, because there are more 130s available for getting lucky, than there are 150s available for getting unlucky. If you were to take a group of people who scored a 140 on an I.Q. test, and ask them to retake the test, the average for the group would be less than 140. Bungee Jumper has ridiculed my intelligence and my knowledge of statistics for saying the things in the above paragraph. Happily, I was able to find a Stanford article which said the same thing I've been saying. Had Bungee Jumper acted like a gentleman in our debate, I'd allow him to leave with dignity. His conduct toward me has been so utterly despicable that, having won this debate, I'm not going to let him off the hook by turning a blind eye toward the errors of his position.

The Stanford quote said exactly what I've been saying all along: someone who scores a 140 on an I.Q. test will tend to get a somewhat lower score upon being retested. I've made my position on this so abundantly clear over the past 50 pages that you can't now pretend that the Stanford website is communicating a different message than I've been communicating. But just in case the Stanford quote didn't quite make it through your thick skull, the Berkeley quote should do the trick: I may not have been able to persuade very many people over the last 50 pages, but at least I gave them a very clear idea as to where I stand. This means your efforts to redefine what I've been saying are futile. Now it's become clear that Berkeley, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and other credible sources support me. Your refusal to acknowledge defeat even at this point damages only your own credibility.

Since you didn't understand the Stanford example the first time around, here it is again Precisely what portion of the bolded text are you too stupid to understand? It's coming from Stanford, so you can't use your usual technique of discrediting the source. It's saying that someone who scored a 140 on an I.Q. test is more likely to be a lucky 135 than an unlucky 145. Therefore, according to the Stanford example, someone who scored a 140 on the first I.Q. test is expected to obtain a slightly lower score upon being retested. Even you, with your talent for creating the appareance of difference where there is no difference, will find it difficult to make the Stanford example seem different from the I.Q. test example I've repeatedly offered, and which you've repeatedly ridiculed. I've won this debate. Hopefully you will learn to be a little less arrogant, Ramius a little less of a loudmouth, and Coli a little less holier than thou. But I have to admit that I don't have much hope for significant character improvements for any of the three of you. Barring that, the next time you call me an idiot, I want the rest of the board to remember this statistical debate. I was right, and you were wrong; and this took place for over 50 pages. In the end, I won. So many highly credible sources supported what I've written about the test/retest situation that you can't possibly hope to discredit them all. The Stanford example is so ridiculously similar to what I've been saying that you won't be able to fool people into thinking that it supports you rather than me.

Agreed. Marv's talked so much about character players. If he ignores a verbal promise to Nate, he destroys the spirit of the organization he's worked so hard to build. Think about the effect this would have on signing other free agents. If you're a highly sought-after free agent with attractive offers from multiple teams, your decision may come down to which organization you like and trust the most. If Marv becomes known as someone who's been dishonest in his dealings with players, that will only make free agents less likely to sign here.

Here's a little something from UCLA.

The objections you're attempting to raise have already been answered by the quotes I've provided. For example, the I.Q. test/retest example I repeatedly provided (and which you repeatedly ridiculed) appears in the Stanford quote. I've won this debate, so there's no use for you to continue to argue.

In honor of the Bills' secondary, here's a quote from Ohio State

Just in case Bungee Jumper is preparing to question the intelligence and statistical knowledge of all the sources I've quoted thus far, here's a quote from Stanford

To remove any doubt in the matter, here's something from The University of Chicago.

Here's a quote from the University of Washington.

Here's a quote from the EPA:

For those who don't like Tufts, here's a quote from Berkeley

Just to drive another nail into the coffin of this debate, I've provided a link from Tufts.

Let me get this straight. First you were saying that you were right, and that I was wrong. Then you started saying that you were right, and Hyperstats was wrong. Now you're saying that you're right, and a statistics textbook is wrong. I'm not even going to debate the mutual fund example. If you care to read up on the subject, you'll find that mutual funds that obtain an exceptionally good performance in one period tend to move toward the industry average in subsequent periods.

It's time to slam the door on this so-called debate. The following quote is from a statistics textbook, and should settle the issue once and for all.

Not a reassuring post, especially considering that the Titans, like the Bills, have the allure of an up-and-coming team. Hopefully Youboty can play.

Your arrogance would be easier to forgive if you could back it up. In the regression toward the mean debate, you couldn't.

What's nice is the Dolphins don't play the Jets until Monday night. The Patriots have to play the Jaguars without knowing the outcome of the Dolphins/Jets game. I don't say this very often, but this weekend I'll be hoping for a Dolphins win and a Patriots win.

Supppose you flipped a coin 100 times, and you had a group of people try to predict the outcome of each flip. Let's say that the average person was right 50% of the time, but the most accurate person was right 65% of the time. That particular person is asked to predict another 100 coin flips. This person is expected to fully regress toward his group's mean of 50% correct answers, because his above-average performance the first time around was due entirely to luck. Let's say you have a test which does not involve meaningful measurement error--such as someone's height. Whoever obtained the tallest measurement the first time around will be equally far away from the population's average upon being remeasured. Now combine the two scenarios: you have a test that's partially luck-based like the coin flip, but also partly based on something innate, like the measurement of height. Consider a test that's half luck, and half innate. Consider someone who gets a really good score on this test. For the average person who obtained a good score, half of the success is due to luck, and the other half is due to innate ability. On retaking the test, the luck half is expected to go away, and the innate half is expected to remain. The person is still expected to do above-average the second time around, but not by as much as the first test. That's all I've been saying.

As could Upstate New York's problems.

Your post makes you look like an idiot for not understanding the various articles and links I've posted on the subject. Then again, it makes you look wishy-washy, because there were times in that discussion when you admitted the phenomenon did exist. Then you have to wonder what it says about your sense of humor if you're telling the same joke that's been told dozens of times already on these PPP boards. Finally, this thread was supposed to be about the closing of a liberal talk radio station. Why you feel the need to hijack this thread and turn it into a regression of the mean debate is beyond me. Other than those four things, your single sentence didn't embarrass you too badly.