Yes, No, or It Depends?

In some ways this blog entry ties back to my previous posts on Choice Points: “Forks in the Road” and Evidence Procedures. One of the things I have been noticing about recent political debates is how often people, and perhaps especially politicians, seem to be absolutely sure of so many things.

Bell Curve

In statistical terms, when we measure most populations on most scales (such as height, weight, IQ, education, age at death, etc.) the result is the familiar bell shape of Pareto’s Law.

It make sense: Some people are really tall, some are really short, and . . . → Read More: Yes, No, or It Depends?

The Bell Curve Theory of Life

The “Bell Curve” is the common expression for what is otherwise known as Standard Normal Distribution. The concept basically states that in any category, most members of the category will be grouped in the middle, with fewer members at the extremes. Wikipedia provides a fancy definition:

In probability theory, the normal (or Gaussian) distribution, is a continuous probability distribution that is often used as a first approximation to describe real-valued random variables that tend to cluster around a single mean value. The graph of the associated probability density function is “bell”-shaped, and is known as the Gaussian function or . . . → Read More: The Bell Curve Theory of Life