[geeks] Ok I am ready to kill this Fu**ing linux box

[David Cantrell]

On Fri, May 24, 2002 at 11:14:24AM -0400, Joshua D Boyd wrote:
> Simple statistics (mean, stdev, etc) can be easily skewed.  Confidence 
> intervals and hypothesis tests are methods for dealing with that skewing.
> True, they too can be skewed, but my understanding is that the odds of
> it happening are pretty astronomical, unless someone is intentionally 
> trying to  screw them up.

Deliberately screwing with the data enough to affect a statistical test
is a Hard Problem.  Once you've done your test, there are further tests
you can do to determine whether the data looks kosher or not.  Unfortunately
it's too long since I studied this stuff and I've forgotten the details.
I say unfortunately, cos I've signed up for a course with the Open University
and it's frightening how much I'm having to re-learn.

-- 
David Cantrell | david at cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

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