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To: tyen
The climatic conditions that affect Portland, Maine weather and subsequent chances of hurricane weather developing there are relatively unique to that city.

You fail to address my point. There might be a hundred cities in the world with similar, low probabilities of being passed by a major hurricane. 0.3% x 100 = 30% annual probability that one will be affected. It would be illogical, after the fact, to be surprised that any particular member of that set had been affected. Now, if you predicted that Portland, Maine, specifically, would be affected this year, and this came to pass, it would be impressive. But retrospectively, it doesn't mean a damn thing, because you get to pick which "coincidences" to get excited about.

56 posted on 05/06/2002 10:44:47 AM PDT by The Great Satan
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To: The Great Satan
I guess you slept through Statistics 101, huh?
61 posted on 05/07/2002 2:54:39 AM PDT by rubbertramp
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To: The Great Satan
You fail to address my point. There might be a hundred cities in the world with similar, low probabilities of being passed by a major hurricane. 0.3% x 100 = 30% annual probability that one will be affected. It would be illogical, after the fact, to be surprised that any particular member of that set had been affected. Now, if you predicted that Portland, Maine, specifically, would be affected this year, and this came to pass, it would be impressive. But retrospectively, it doesn't mean a damn thing, because you get to pick which "coincidences" to get excited about.

You have lost me here. I interpreted the analysis to say that the 0.2% expresses the probability across the set of all U.S. microbiologists that 11 would die of unnatural causes within a span of 4.5 months, not the set of unity for one microbiologist to die from an unnatural cause within a span of 4.5 months, which could then be multiplied by the population of all microbiologists. What steps did you take in your interpretation of the analysis' scope?

65 posted on 05/07/2002 6:11:20 PM PDT by tyen
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