Iranian president in United States

[Just the Facts]

Yes it would be less moronic. Regardless of how many times a judge used the death penalty during sentencing. Including a country which does not even belong in the same category of statistics is wrong, fundamentally wrong. It's not even the same categorical variable.

You're introducing complexities that are beyond the scope of the simple original point.

Would it still be 91%, or not?

 

[Tonington]

You're introducing complexities that are beyond the scope of the simple original point.

Would it still be 91%, or not?

I'm not introducing any complexities, I reworded what you said.. You seem to have a lack of understanding in how data is collected and presented.

Of course the 91% wouldn't change, but stats is not just numbers, it's what is associated with the numbers.

Maybe if I explain this one more time you will understand. The stat was about worldwide death penalties and from which countries they come from. That some countries contribute less than others is irrelevant to that stat. It was saying that a certain percentage come from those countries. Likely because after those countries listed it dwindles off to smaller numbers. You were saying how ridiculous it was, because China contributes so much, and you thought that the stat was as useless as including Canada. But because we are not in the same category, you couldn't be more wrong.

I agree it would be foolish still to include a country which does have the option of the death penalty, but hasn't used it. If you wanted to include that country, you might as well include all countries which have the death penalty, and then the point of the statistic is useless. The statistic was showing how the majority of the death penalties used are in a select few countries.

Anyways, it is dishonest to give a statistic and include a country which doesn't contribute in a statistically significant way to the stat provided. If you can't see that you should read up on statistics.

 

[Just the Facts]

Are we on the same thread here? :?::-? You're way over-intellectualizing.

My only point was that listing a bunch of countries and giving the sum total percentage of executions from those countries is a meaningless stat. Period. Kinda like the old George Carlin joke...."baseball scores last night, 5-1, 3-2, 4=2, and 3-1". Would it be moronic to add another score? If I add 6-2 then I'm full of horse sh|it! :lol:

91% doesn't tell me anything about executions in China, or in Iran, or in Pakistan, or in Iraq, or in Sudan, or in USA. So it may as well tell me nothing about executions in Canada. It seems moronic to you to include Canada only because you have pre-existing knowledge about the state of capital punishment in Canada. You're using your pre-existing knowledge to make that judgement, without it you would have no idea it was noronic. Which is exactly my point...the stat is meaningless. So what's dishonest about including a country which doesn't contribute in a "statistically significant" way to the stat provided, when my whole point is that the stat provided is meaningless.

As for reading up on stats, check out the meaning of statistically significant.

 

[Tonington]

You just don't get it. The stat isn't meant to tell you anything about executions in a particular country, only where the majority of death penalties occur. Who doesn't use pre-existing knowledge when they start to talk about something. I believe it is called talking out of your ass when you talk about something you know nothing about.

I'll give you an example to show how foolish it is to use Canada in that stat. 52% of students in grade 7 said their first menstruation was embarrassing. Would it be logical to include comments from the boys in that grade, or to even include them in the statistic? No, of course not, because the information we want to express doesn't apply to them.

 

[Just the Facts]

You just don't get it.

:smile: Apparently not.

The stat isn't meant to tell you anything about executions in a particular country, only where the majority of death penalties occur.

Thanks. Now I get it! :lol:

I believe it is called talking out of your ass when you talk about something you know nothing about.

Amen to that! :headbang:

I'll give you an example to show how foolish it is to use Canada in that stat. 52% of students in grade 7 said their first menstruation was embarrassing. Would it be logical to include comments from the boys in that grade, or to even include them in the statistic? No, of course not, because the information we want to express doesn't apply to them.

What I definitely get, is that that's not a valid analogy. A better analogy would be to say that 91% of students embarrased by their first menses where in grade 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Now you can add boys all you want.* The stat remains unaffected. Knowing that boys don't menstruate, you can conclude that including them is moronic. However, it remains that including them, as moronic as you may feel that it is, does not affect the metric.

Edit:
*So for example, now you can say that 91% of students embarrased by their first menses where in grade 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and St. Jeromes School for Adolescent Boys.

Just as an aside, you seem to forget that my example of including Canada in the stat was not meant to not be foolish. There really has never been any need to demonstate it's foolishness. It was foolish by design, as matter of illustration.

Anyhow, I grow weary of this discussion. If you want we can continue in the 10,000 post thread. Then at least we would be contributing to a shot at world peace!

 

[Tonington]

Lol, we agree on one thing at least, weary indeed.

All I have to add, is you changed the stat by adding more variables, it loses it's descriptive power. The analogy was, you don't add variables (categorical or quantitative) to a stat which do not affect the description.

Here's another analogy. Suppose one of our NATO allies have troops in Afghanistan, but they are not there in a combat role. They send army engineers to build schools, bring water gathering technology, etc. Let us also say they rely on the security blanket provided by other nations. Now some agency releases a report. They find that coalition troops in active combat are responsible for 68% of violent deaths in the country (lets ignore the definition of violent deaths in this case, as it isn't important to this discussion.) Do you think it would be fair or accurate to list the hypothetical allies who do not contribute to the combat forces, and therefore by extension, not to the deaths described by that statistic?

That's really what I'm getting at. Whether or not you think the original statistic was useful or not, changing the stat by including an irrelevant variable is not even handed, and does not prove it's worth (or as you say, lack thereof.)

 

[Just the Facts]

Now back to our main feature, Ahmadinjihad in America.