Does anyone know if Tom Bearden was using the regular definition of sigma in his statement? Ten standard deviations above the average is a bit extreme. It seems kind of odd to me that, on a planet with roughly six billion people, anyone would go around claiming to be in the top hundred thousand billion billionth of the population. Let alone a few in a certain area.
mythusmage
Scholar
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Maybe he's an extreme 'inclusionist' and counted bacteria in his figure?
Kess said:
Makes no difference, since IQ is based on a normal distribution. It's not an independent quantity. With a sigma of 20, the most intelligent person in the world would by definition have an IQ of about 226. An IQ figure of 300 has no meaning.
- So, guys, how did you do in the running race last week?
- Pretty good. I came in third place out of two hundred.
- Yeah? Well, I came in first place.
- Pfft! Me and my friends came in minus a thousand billionth place. Take that, losers!
Ladewig
I lost an avatar bet.
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I am not a professional mathematician, so if I am mistaken please let me know. (as if that request were necessary on this forum).
Isn't it possible to have an instance of something being 10 standard deviations away from the mean without a population of several billion billions? The U.S. C.D.C. defines the average adult male's height at 69 inches and says the standard deviation is 2.35 inches. So, ten s.d. would be 23.5 inches. Add that to 69, and one gets 92.5 inches or 7 feet 8.5 inches. There are several people alive today who are taller then that.
As for Bearden-
He is referring to someone being 10 standard deviations above the norm in paranormal abilities. Even if they do exist, I am confident that no one has ever calculated the standard deviation of such an unquantifiable thing.
Isn't it possible to have an instance of something being 10 standard deviations away from the mean without a population of several billion billions? The U.S. C.D.C. defines the average adult male's height at 69 inches and says the standard deviation is 2.35 inches. So, ten s.d. would be 23.5 inches. Add that to 69, and one gets 92.5 inches or 7 feet 8.5 inches. There are several people alive today who are taller then that.
As for Bearden-
He is referring to someone being 10 standard deviations above the norm in paranormal abilities. Even if they do exist, I am confident that no one has ever calculated the standard deviation of such an unquantifiable thing.
What the heck is the "norm" in this curve anyway? Someone who couldn't predict their way out of a brown paper bag? And does that mean that a MINUS 10-sigma could predict their way INTO a brown paper bag?
Sheesh!
As Clive James said, it's a seive for sand, a snare for a snark. That is, buffalo-chips, nothing more.
Sheesh!
As Clive James said, it's a seive for sand, a snare for a snark. That is, buffalo-chips, nothing more.
epepke
Philosopher
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- Oct 22, 2003
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- 9,264
Ladewig said:
OK, I'll try. There are many kinds of distributions, and the normal distribution is only one of them. Some things have multi-modal distributions. Height is probably one of them. There are genetic conditions for dwarfism and genetic conditions for giantism. Although a normal distribution might be a good model if you were dealing with a bunch of identical people who got different diets, it probably isn't so good when dealing with the population at large.
However, as a person with a measured IQ a mere, dissapointing, and paltry four sigmas above the norm, even I am intelligent enough to figure out that talking about ten sigmas is pretty stupid. Hell, even talking about four sigmas is iffy at best.
Ladewig said:
It is always possible to observe an extreme outlier regardless of the sample size.
However, one can compute the expected number of data points beyond a certain number of deviations in a straightfoward fashion, given a distributional assumption, and an assumption of what specifically constitutes an outlier (there are many different opinions).
What type of data are we talking about again?