Originally posted by Davo:
Originally posted by MxRacerCamXXXL:
so am i to understand that you consider less than 100 people to consitute a "large portion" as you put it? because 100 out of 3M or more also constitutes a large portion, eh?


Again (v.23904852 X 10^35), I'm inferring that there is a large portion of Pistons fans who are conspiracy theorists. I've shown throughout this thread that it's not a bad inference to make. If I wanted to get an idea of what percentage of Pistons fans were conspiracy theorists, I would draw a representative sample and survey from there.




perhaps it would help to determine what you consider a "large portion of the pistons fan base" to be, and exactly how many piston fans you've encountered, and how many of them are conspiracy theorists. can you do that for me?

Originally posted by Davo:

Originally posted by MxRacerCamXXXL:
an analogy:

i've seen 1 C6 ZO6 out of the 1000 corvettes that i have ever seen, therefore, a large portion of corvettes are C6 ZO6's.

see how this is flawed on several levels? not only is it illogical to apply this percentage to all corvettes, it's also a poor example of taking a representative sample of the population of corvettes.


It's not flawed, since only a very small number of the Corvettes you've seen have been C6 Z06s. If you had seen 50 or 100/1000, then you could say a large portion of Corvettes are C6s.





actually, davo, it's flawed for that very reason. a small portion of a non-representative sample cannot be translated (i.e. and inference cannot be made) to the whole population.

you can sit here and tell me over and over again that most of the pistons fans you've encountered are conspiracy theorists, but that does not change the fact that this alone does not automatically infer the same thing about the larger population. no matter how badly you would like it to.

also, i find it interesting that you keep trying to pull the conversation away from statistics and statistical significance. proper inferences absolutely require statistical evidence including an accurate representation of the population, which also involves percentages. without it, all you have is opinion and specuation. opinion and speculation do not magically become logical inferences without scientific evidence backing them up. no proper statistical representation = no scientific evidence. no scientific evidence = only opinion and specualtion.


02 Mustang GT... Tuned by Nelsons. Low 12's, anyone? .....______ ___|______\_____ |/-\_________/-\_| .\_/...............\_/