Bungee Jumper

That makes sense, considering that the Hispanic immigrants who need the Spanish translation are mostly Roman Catholic, and English-speaking Americans are pretty much idiots...

I've got $20 that says he doesn't, but responds that we're wrong and don't understand the relationship between probability and error.

But you specifically said the die has an "expected roll" of 3.5 - your words, not mine. How do you expect to roll a 3.5 with a die? You also said that a roll of 6 has an error of 2.5 - your words again, not mine. How is the die in error? Very simple questions. You shouldn't feel the need to dodge them.

But is that error like when you roll a five with a die, and the die is wrong by +1.5?

Beats shooting them somewhere where they might be hurt...

What????? Oh, sweet mother of God, this is the most !@#$ed up thing I have ever read. I think I just hurt myslf laughing... Please...enlighten the class. How do you roll a 3.5 with a single die? And how is the die in error if you roll a six?

Nice is error?

Goody goody for me. Now if, as you say, regression toward the mean is caused by error, explain to me how measurement error causes my dice to regress toward the mean.

Well, gee...y'know, I was pretty sure I understood the available science. But your stunning tornado anology convinced me otherwise.

No, you're not. No matter how many times you say it, you'll still be wrong. Which has precisely jack sh-- to do with error.

That's what he means by "you seem to have a hard time understanding it". You're communicating a completely different message, because you can't differentiate "probability" from "error". And it's really not that hard: You roll a pair of dice, it's probabilistic. When they stop moving, it's deterministic. The system has an expectation value (a "mean") of 7. Rolls subsequent to very low or very high rolls (2 or 3, or 11 or 12) will tend to regress toward the mean not because dice are error-prone or inaccurate - they're not, they're very accurate and not the least bit subject to error. It's because there's only 3 ways to roll a 2 or 3, and 33 other possibilities the next time you roll. Regression toward the mean happens because your current measure is deterministic, but your future measure is probabilistic. That's probability, not error. It's really !@#$ing simple. Like I said, I can teach that to a three year old. Why the !@#$ do you have so much trouble with it?

Exactly. The problem is that that doesn't mean what you think it means. You're not measuring the regression of the IQ, you're mesauring the regression of the error. You think you're measuring the regression of the IQ because you specifically and arbitrarily chose a subset of data where the regression of the error is toward the mean of the IQ. That does not make it regression of the IQ score. Like I keep saying: YOU ARE MEASURING THE WRONG !@#$ING THING, DUMBASS!!!!

Now I'm a conservative today? Will someone please call me a Nazi or a Communist? Just for a change of pace.

Can we define "nice", please? I don't have to...like...hug his pudgy ass or anything, do I?

CHANCE AND LUCK ARE A FUNCTION OF PROBABILITY AS A FEATURE OF A STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION! THAT IS NOT THE SAME THING AS ERROR! What part of "probability is not error" are you not understanding? Your "Monte Carlo" (sic) simulation shows regression toward the mean of your normally distributed error because of the defined probabilistic nature of the error: the guy with a "real IQ" of 160 who scores 170 does so because he experiences extremely unlikely error in his favor, not because he's scoring an extremely unlikely IQ score. He is more likely to score closer to 160 next time not because the measured IQ is regressing toward a mean of 100, but because the error is regressing toward the mean error of 0!!!!! Your simulation is measuring the wrong !@#$ing thing!!!!! Is there anyone else out there who isn't understanding me? Am I being unclear, or is Holcomb's Arm really this much of a blockhead?

Either of them, jackass. We know why.

But I hate people. Why the !@#$ would I do that? Hear that, KurtGoebbels? I hate people. Put that in your sig.

Oh, good...blzrul and catchescannonballs are going to argue Repigs vs. Dimocraps. Do either of you ever wonder why no one takes you seriously?

We'll just start a new one. He has a pathological need to look like an idiot, and I have a pathological need to egg him on.

And you don't understand the article, because it's not error causing the effect. Error has nothing to do with it; it's a feature of a normally distributed sample. The regression is not because of "error", the regression is because it's a statistical function, not a deterministic one. Which is your main hang-up in this entire discussion. You can't define "statistics". It's not deterministic, it's probabilistic...which is what causes regression, and it's not error either. So we'll just add that to the list of words you can't define: "deterministic", "statistical", and "probability". Hell, let's just say you can't define "math".

God damn it, now what am I going to do with this !@#$ing popcorn?

Just so it's not Clinton vs. Bush. Clinton vs. X, X vs. Bush, I'll vote for X, no question. Clinton vs. Bush...I'm declaring open, armed revolution.

Ohhhh-kay...this ought to be entertaining. Let me get some popcorn quick...

Wow. If you did that, it would really suck to be boom...

Stop this? This sh-- is high comedy. But of course, I just read a book about mud, so what the !@#$ do I know...