Richard Desmond buys Channel Five
 

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Jim Lesurf wrote:
.
In the strict sense that you don't get thrown into prison for it,
yes, it's allowed. But those looking for a research grant or hoping
for a long career and advancement have good reasons to avoid the
study of the correlation between race and intelligence, and also
anything that questions the global warming religion.
How much experience have you had of either sitting on the relevant
funding panels or acting as a referee for the applications they get?

Such experience isn't necessary. The facts are well known, to those of
us who don't read the Guardian or believe the BBC.

Ah, OK, the "fact established by mere assertion" route... Well known in
academic circles. :-)

Well, when the true facts are suppressed we men on the Clapham bendybus
have to reach our own conclusions!

Has Boris not retired all the Bendybuses yet? And what are you doing in the
Big City?
--
JohnT

Richard Desmond buys Channel Five
 

On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:40:42 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Jim Lesurf wrote:

I'm quite happy to say it is "wrong" on the following basis.

That in general the mean, mode, and median all can return quite different
values for a given set of data. Indeed, there are also a set of different
sub-types of 'mean'. So as soon as you allow a term like "The Average"
(note use of definite article) to mean *all* of them symultaneously (i.e.
as "synonyms")

They are not all "the average" they are all types *of* average.

A la George Orwell: Some averages are more average than others.

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

Richard Desmond buys Channel Five
 

In article ,
J G Miller wrote:
On Mon, July 26th, 2010 at 17:43:12h +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

Well, when the true facts are suppressed we men on the Clapham bendybus
have to reach our own conclusions!

Surely without true facts it is impossible to reach a conclusion,
and if one is made, then it will be a false conclusion?

Which of course prompts the question, "what is a true fact", and no
matter how true a fact, will not its interpretation always be colored by
personal bias and prejudice?

One fact is there aren't any bendybuses in Clapham. ;-)

--
*Virtual reality is its own reward*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Richard Desmond buys Channel Five
 

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Max Demian
wrote:
"Peter Duncanson" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:45:47 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

Well that was what I was taught; seems it's still being taught today

http://www.gcse.com/maths/averages.htm
http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/average

Interesting that such errors and muddles should propagate into such
sources.

General dictionaries record the way words are used even if some of the
uses are not technically correct. If some words are commonly used in a
way that is erroneous and muddled in terms of their strict meanings or
origins these "wrong" usages should appear in the dictionary entries.

However, Merriam-Webster should have distinguished between technical
and non-technical definitions.

The GCSE website which deals with technical uses only is just plain
wrong to use "average" to include "mean", "mode" and "median".

Who says that it is 'plain wrong'? Do we all have to start saying
'central tendency' instead? What would that gain us?

I'm quite happy to say it is "wrong" on the following basis.

That in general the mean, mode, and median all can return quite different
values for a given set of data. Indeed, there are also a set of different
sub-types of 'mean'. So as soon as you allow a term like "The Average"
(note use of definite article) to mean *all* of them symultaneously (i.e.
as "synonyms") you end up with statements that will in general be false
and/or misleading unless carefully qualified and explained in each case.

I can appreciate that in general common language there will be no
awareness
of any distinction - as with other examples like the ones Bill and I
listed
- and general dictionaries may reflect that. But for people who know about
or need to use stats correctly, trying to use the same word to mean all of
them without specifing in each situation is a recipy for confusion and
error. The ambiguity clouds clear communication and thought.

Which of the above do you define as your phrase "central tendency" and
what
formula would you use for it given a set of data values?

'Average' is useful in the same way that 'animal' is useful - even though
the later includes sponges and sea anemones.

--
Max Demian

Richard Desmond buys Channel Five
 

On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:56:35 +0100, Brian Gaff
wrote:

I reckon the Queen ought to have bought it myself.

Royal TV...

She could have her own programme... The One Show.

What? Someone's already done that? How despicable.

Richard Desmond buys Channel Five
 

Paul Ratcliffe wrote:

She could have her own programme... The One Show.

I don't bother with it any more. When it had Brummie bloke and the funny
looking Irish bird it was quite good because you could sense something
was going on between them, but now it's just like breakfast television.
Incidentally I'm of the generation that finds people sitting on sofas in
the morning objectionable. If you're lucky enough to have a settee you
shouldn't sit on it in the morning. You get up, have a ****, and if you
have time to sit at all (excepting the previous occupation) before you
go to work you do it on a hard chair in the kitchen. You don't go in the
parlour until after you've had your tea that night. Then you remove the
cloth from the television and watch Panorama.

Bill

Richard Desmond buys Channel Five
 

In article , Andy
Burns
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

I'm quite happy to say it is "wrong" on the following basis.

That in general the mean, mode, and median all can return quite
different values for a given set of data. Indeed, there are also a set
of different sub-types of 'mean'. So as soon as you allow a term like
"The Average" (note use of definite article) to mean *all* of them
symultaneously (i.e. as "synonyms")

They are not all "the average" they are all types *of* average.

Is your point that no-one ever uses the term "the average", or even "on
average"?

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Richard Desmond buys Channel Five
 

In article , Bill Wright
scribeth thus
Paul Ratcliffe wrote:

She could have her own programme... The One Show.

I don't bother with it any more. When it had Brummie bloke and the funny
looking Irish bird it was quite good because you could sense something
was going on between them, but now it's just like breakfast television.
Incidentally I'm of the generation that finds people sitting on sofas in
the morning objectionable. If you're lucky enough to have a settee you
shouldn't sit on it in the morning. You get up, have a ****, and if you
have time to sit at all (excepting the previous occupation) before you
go to work you do it on a hard chair in the kitchen. You don't go in the
parlour until after you've had your tea that night. Then you remove the
cloth from the television


My gran used to do that, didn't want the people in the telly looking at
her during the day;!....

and watch Panorama.

Bill

--
Tony Sayer

Richard Desmond buys Channel Five
 

On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:22:30 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Adrian C wrote:

Ah, knowing that twits connections, Channel 5 will become this ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L!VE_TV

Blame Janner Stray Pawer for that ...

No, blame Kelvin McKenzie for that. All the stuff that people
'remember' of Live TV (topless darts, britain's bounciest weather,
news bunny, etc) was his idea and occured after Janet's departure.

--

Richard Desmond buys Channel Five
 

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Jim Lesurf
saying something like:

Interesting that such errors and muddles should propagate into such
sources.

Particularly odd for a 'dictionary' to say that a series of things that
have quite different meanings in statistics are 'synonyms'. Perhaps they
don't even know the meaning of 'synonym'. :-)

Oh well, given that 'English' ends up being defined by useage I assume
this will become established as the general usage. Not unusual for
terms in daily common use to be assigned a different meaning to when
specialists use the same word. a la muddles over 'weight' and 'mass'
and of course 'energy' and 'power'.

Now, perhaps you see what I was on about.