JJ Vs. jfern: Poll on their statistical knowledge

[ATFFL]

Here is the situation:  You have just started a polling company and are going to hire a statistician.  The only two people to apply are JJ and jfern.   The only basis you have to make your decision is this thread.

Based on this, who do you hire?

A few rules:

JJ and jfern, please do not carry your debate into here.  If you would like to link to specific posts you want voters to pay attention to, feel free to link to them.  Otherwise, I would appreciate it if you did not post in here.

No personal insults, please.  This includes calling either one of the applicants jfraud.

Please do not vote based on political philosophy.  If all the math talk is going over your head, please, do not vote.

I have decided to link to the few significant comments from people other than JJ or jfern to help you decide.

muon2's comments.  muon2's follow-up.

Tredrick's comments.

James42's comments.

The poll will close in 24 hours.  The results will be hidden until then.

[ATFFL]

The results don't seem to be hidden.

Comments are welcome and allowed.  We are up to 10 views and an unknown number of votes.  Could be 1, 2, 5 or 10. 

Perhaps we can get the applicants to treat the comments as an exit poll and see what they predict the final results will be.

[ATFFL]

JJ and jfern, please do not carry your debate into here.  If you would like to link to specific posts you want voters to pay attention to, feel free to link to them.  Otherwise, I would appreciate it if you did not post in here.

You guys miss this part?


And, since others are not forbidden from commenting here:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

2. I say that for large random samples, or for the normal distribution, the 95% confidence interval has a MOE of approxixmately +- 1.96 standard deviations. J.J. says I'm wrong, and it's exactly 2.

This claim is demonstrably false.

If the sample is large, and the level of statistical signifiance we are using is 95%, then it's about 1.96 standard deviations. When we are outside of that range, we conclude that there's a statistically significant difference. You can choose 3 standard deviations or 99.7%, and so on.

Actually it exceptionally close to two standard deviations; a full description can be seen here:

http://www.robertniles.com/stats/stdev.shtml

[ATFFL]

JJ and jfern, please do not carry your debate into here.  If you would like to link to specific posts you want voters to pay attention to, feel free to link to them.  Otherwise, I would appreciate it if you did not post in here.

You guys miss this part?


And, since others are not forbidden from commenting here:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

2. I say that for large random samples, or for the normal distribution, the 95% confidence interval has a MOE of approxixmately +- 1.96 standard deviations. J.J. says I'm wrong, and it's exactly 2.

This claim is demonstrably false.

If the sample is large, and the level of statistical signifiance we are using is 95%, then it's about 1.96 standard deviations. When we are outside of that range, we conclude that there's a statistically significant difference. You can choose 3 standard deviations or 99.7%, and so on.

Actually it exceptionally close to two standard deviations; a full description can be seen here:

http://www.robertniles.com/stats/stdev.shtml

J.J's link doesn't prove anything. If you understand the normal distribution, you could find the values for yourself using integrals of the normal density function 1/sqrt(2*Pi) * e^(-x^2/2).  By integrating this, we find that 2 standard deviations includes 95.4499736%.

Here's a chart that clearly shows that it's not exactly 2 standard deviations. Find x such that the area from 0 to x standard deviations is approximately 95%/2=47.5%. You should get around 1.96.
http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/sttable.html

I'd like people to not vote for J.J just because they don't like me, and haven't carefully examined the facts. If you can't check for yourself whether the MOE for the 95% confidence interval of the normal distribution is closer to 1.96 standard deviations than 2, don't vote. 

Get your facts straight before you claim that I'm wrong. J.J says it's exactly 2 standard deviations. Some webpage that doesn't make it clear that they're saying that it's approximately 2 standard deviations doesn't prove sh**t. J.J. said I was wrong for saying it was 1.96 deviations.

You said he said it was exactly 2, he actually said it was exceedingly close to 2.  See the difference?

[ATFFL]

The community has spoken.  JJ lays claim to the title of Master Stastician of Atlasia.

Now, for the love of God, will the two of you stop discussing this stuff.

[ATFFL]

Facts don't follow the will of the majority.
I can't beleive that all 32 people were qualified to vote on this.
The results look similar to the who would you vote for poll with me and J.J.

I am disappointed in the 24 people who did not carefully consider, is 940 heads and 60 tails significantly different from that of a fair coin? You were not qualified to vote.

I phrased the question so people would be by default qualified.  People decided they woudl rather hire JJ. 

Until you realize there is a difference between the theory of flipping a coin 1000 times and interviewing a thousand people you will never understand why JJ won.