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Metus comments on Open Thread, April 27-May 4, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

0 Post author: NancyLebovitz 27 April 2014 08:34PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 28 April 2014 12:23:57AM *  3 points [-]

The educated statistician will recognise these two numbers as the first two modes of a distribution. But these two modes completely describe a distribution if and only if it is a normal distribution.

(The "only if" is incorrect. For many other families of distributions, knowing mean and variance is also sufficient to pinpoint a unique distribution.)

Comment author: Metus 28 April 2014 12:31:37AM 0 points [-]

I must have mixed it up with some other statement.

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 28 April 2014 01:09:32PM 2 points [-]

"Yeah, sorry I said something that was incorrect. I meant to say something that wasn't incorrect."

I've seen more ballsy responses than this, but not many.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 28 April 2014 03:48:16PM 0 points [-]

I don't understand. Metus flatly admitted error, end of story.

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 28 April 2014 04:37:17PM *  0 points [-]

For clarity, I found what Metus said to be very funny. I commented because I wanted to underscore the humour, not because I wanted to be critical.

Comment author: fezziwig 28 April 2014 07:27:45PM 0 points [-]

FWIW, I also read it as an insult. And though I do believe you that that wasn't your intent, I don't see how else to read it even now.

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 28 April 2014 08:30:54PM 2 points [-]

Well, it wasn't intended as a kind comment either, but it clearly fell a lot flatter than I thought it would.

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