Bungee Jumper

We're not arguing. You're pretending you know what you're talking about, and I'm laughing my ass off.

If I have to elaborate more, you'll never understand it. You fixed everything but the error in your simulation, and you think one of your fixed parameters is what you're simulating. You're not. And no matter how many different ways I explain it, you just won't get it.

No, the simulation demonstrated that because, again, you don't understand it. You're still measuring error, not IQ. I can understand why you think you're measuring IQ...but you're not. You're treating IQ as a fixed parameter, and watching the error evolve around it. And - again - you still haven't done the math. Get a pencil and a piece of paper, and go through the equations. That should be much more difficult for you to screw up than a MC simulation.

I understand. It's the government's job to protect us from bad lasagna...

Air America going bankrupt. And no, I didn't look either.

No, you weren't. You were measuring how a normally distributed measurable regresses toward the mean. Not how a normally distributed parameter causes another normally distributed measurable to regress. All you did was confuse "error" with "intelligence" in your own simulation. That you can't even see that is so completely unsurprising, it shouldn't be nearly as funny as it is. But it is...because you don't even understand your own simulation.

No, not at all. You can't assume that the mean of normally distributed error, applied over multiple measurements, decreases. It doesn't, by definition...it's normally distributed. You're saying that your simulation invalidated its own initial parameters that you established. All that proves is that you didn't know what you were doing when you wrote it. Again, no...because you established as an initial fixed parameter normally distributed error. Measured IQs should over- and understate "real" IQs at the same rate. If they didn't...again, you !@#$ed up your simulation. What? Again, you're not even wrong. Ignoring the obvious bull sh-- in that paragraph...how the hell does the error in the test magically disappear in the second iteration? I can tell you why: because you don't know what you're doing. You're not measuring what you think you're measuring. Actually, they all think you've got oatmeal for brains, regardless of insightfulness.

Well...it is, if you're measuring regression toward the mean of error. Because that's precisely what he did: he set up a simulation, established his measurable, ran it, and concluded that his measurable regressed toward the mean. His problem is that his normally distributed measurable was error...so he didn't "prove" that error caused regression toward the mean, he proved that normally distributed error will regress toward the mean. Not that he'll twig to the difference...cause, effect, who cares? And that's beyond the question of whether or not he set the simulation up properly...he didn't, of course.

What's surprising is that I'm the cool one in the office. Seriously...

No. Just this statistics topic. Ever since I burst out laughing at that "regression toward the mean is error" comment, they've wanted regular updates... Yeah, it's kind of sad. But they're statisticians...they don't have much...

Nope. You'd know that if you read the paper. It's the part where he says it wasn't case-controlled for environment...

What I don't know is how you make it look so damned easy.

You measured "regression toward the mean" as a function of error when the same people take the same test multiple times. Now read very carefully, the next part is very important: YOU MEASURED THE WRONG MEASURABLE. And even beyond that, your math was all sorts of !@#$ed up...but let's deal with the bigger issue of understanding the actual problem first: even if we presume the stated Wikipedia equation is correct (it's not, as I explained earlier), and even if we presume your definition of "heritability" as used in that equation is correct (it's not, for reasons you've already established you can't begin to understand), and even if we assume IQ is an adequate measurable (it's not, which is why not even the studies you've quoted use it)m none of it has anything to do with the same people taking IQ tests more than once. You're measuring the variance between multiple instances of the same thing - a person's IQ test. You're SUPPOSED to be measuring the variance between individual instances of different things - parents' and children's IQs. Basically, you simulated the wrong thing. You spectacularly !@#$ed up the problem. I can't wait to share this one with the statisticians at work...

No, I actually think he's serious. It's damned hard to be that stupid, that consistently, for thirteen pages (although, including the other threads, it's closer to 25) intentionally. I honestly think he believes he knows what he's talking about...which is what makes it so damned funny.

I see. Now he wants to cuddle...

I am. This is high comedy...

Even since he spurned your advances, you two just can't get along...

How the hell do you ever believe that you did the math right? It took me three seconds to find the fundamental flaw in your "simulation". Namely, that you simulated the wrong !@#$ing thing, you idiot! And even then, you still didn't do it right. I'm laughing so hard, I can barely type...seriously...

I'm still not clear on why it's the government's responsibility to look out for your health... I don't suppose you can tell us specifically what, out of NCI's $5B budget, was actually cut, can you? "Cancer research" is pretty vague - ignorantly vague, as a matter of fact.

I knew that if you tried to do the math, you'd !@#$ it all up and not know it. I was right on both counts. Of course, you didn't model what the Wikipedia article was talking about...or what you've been talking about...or regression toward the mean...in fact, you didn't model anything even remotely useful; you'd have gotten more valid statistical results from a bowl of soup. But hey, whatever.

You'd have thought that was...I don't know...obvious or something.

Have you seen Favre play this year? I'm willing to believe it was the latter...

Just leave it. Trust me.

That is the funniest thing I've read here in a long time. Do you have ANY idea how many different ways you !@#$ed that up? sh--, you didn't even measure the right thing.

He can't even reach the button to turn the TV off. Don't see how he'll end the world...