probability theory

[aarthrj3811]

OK now ....I am a Dowser..I am going to take one of those Scentific Double-Blind Test. There will be one coin placed under one of 10 cups. I will make my run and be scored. I will make a total of 10 runs. How many coins will I find?. Now you have to remember that all Dowsing is the same as guessing.The only question here is HOW MANY COINS WILL I FIND?

When I ask this simple Question these are some of the answers I recieved..

Odds of finding 1 is 38.7%.
Odds of finding 0 is 34.9%.
Odds of finding 2 is 19.4%.
Odds of finding 3 is 5.7%.
Odds of finding 4 is 1.1%.
Odds of finding 5 is 0.15%.

So, you have a 98.7% chance of finding between 0 and 3 coins.

Art it's already been answered, you sum the probabilities from the binomial distribution just as Carl has already shown. Here I'll break it down for you even more because you obviously have some kind of patronizing manner as if you think this question is too hard to figure out (when in reality I first learned all the basic discrete probability distributions in my VERY FIRST INTRO PROB STATS CLASS). If you're looking for a number, if you ran this test an infinite number of times it will average out 1 correct guess. That is the expected number of coins on average you'll guess correctly.

Sorry Art you have not beat the chances for guessing at random, you have beaten the expected AVERAGE in one single instance.

Sure it won't be exact for a single instance. The fact is a dowser would still have to have it occur at that exact moment for it to matter. The odds of him dowsing say 5 or 6 is still so stacked against him that it probably WON'T happen in that instance.

.....you are free to label probability and its application, by any name you choose. However, as a tool for predicting the expected outcome of a process (test) having a finite number of possible outcomes;

If it's done correctly, double-blind, ect, I think you'd be lucky to get one in ten.

I fully "expect" Art to find on average 1 coin in his attempts. On average, the more replications of his test he runs, the average of all replications will converge asymptotically to the expected average of the binomial distribution, in this case 1.

As you can see, roughly 93% of the time you will experience Zero, One or Two Hits

 

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[ClonedSIM]

OK now ....I am a Dowser..I am going to take one of those Scentific Double-Blind Test. There will be one coin placed under one of 10 cups. I will make my run and be scored. I will make a total of 10 runs. How many coins will I find?. Now you have to remember that all Dowsing is the same as guessing.The only question here is HOW MANY COINS WILL I FIND?

When I ask this simple Question these are some of the answers I recieved..

Odds of finding 1 is 38.7%.
Odds of finding 0 is 34.9%.
Odds of finding 2 is 19.4%.
Odds of finding 3 is 5.7%.
Odds of finding 4 is 1.1%.
Odds of finding 5 is 0.15%.

So, you have a 98.7% chance of finding between 0 and 3 coins.

Art it's already been answered, you sum the probabilities from the binomial distribution just as Carl has already shown. Here I'll break it down for you even more because you obviously have some kind of patronizing manner as if you think this question is too hard to figure out (when in reality I first learned all the basic discrete probability distributions in my VERY FIRST INTRO PROB STATS CLASS). If you're looking for a number, if you ran this test an infinite number of times it will average out 1 correct guess. That is the expected number of coins on average you'll guess correctly.

Sorry Art you have not beat the chances for guessing at random, you have beaten the expected AVERAGE in one single instance.

Sure it won't be exact for a single instance. The fact is a dowser would still have to have it occur at that exact moment for it to matter. The odds of him dowsing say 5 or 6 is still so stacked against him that it probably WON'T happen in that instance.

.....you are free to label probability and its application, by any name you choose. However, as a tool for predicting the expected outcome of a process (test) having a finite number of possible outcomes;

If it's done correctly, double-blind, ect, I think you'd be lucky to get one in ten.

I fully "expect" Art to find on average 1 coin in his attempts. On average, the more replications of his test he runs, the average of all replications will converge asymptotically to the expected average of the binomial distribution, in this case 1.

As you can see, roughly 93% of the time you will experience Zero, One or Two Hits

You asked how many coins you would find, Art. That question was answered many times. You, of course ignored there. Then you tested a big bunch of non-dowsers and the answers given were very close to your final findings.

Exactly how many coins did you find, and how was the test conducted?

Remember, since you're starting a new thread with this one, you might want to include all the information, and not just what you want to see.

 

[aarthrj3811]

Now when Sandsted agreed to take a test it seems like the probability theory changed a little.

Great, so if Sandy gets 7 correct, we can both agree it was due to his dowsing ability?

By saying the test will validate nothing he is simply doing a nice little CYA job, but even if he disagreed with the test he still agreed to take it, so the results do have some validity, at the very least confirming his own self-administered test results of 40-60%.

Hey Art, what you've obviously failed to notice is that Sandy himself said he expected a 40-60% success rate when doing the test alone.

Actually, true guessing in real-world situations follows mathematical distributions precisely. If it did not, then the whole field of statistics would be bogus.

This isn't a contest, Art, it's a test. There are no winners or losers, only results. You are right to say that his results should be far better than what can be obtained by guessing, assuming dowsing works better than guessing.

The exercise of putting a human through the process of "guessing" a series of trials in order to obtain GUESSED DATA for comparison, has ALREADY been accomplished. The data has been calculated precisely and has been given here in more than one posting. Further, the data that "might" be obtained from Sandsted guessing could very likely be flawed, when compared to the calculated data. You see, if he guesses and produces data, there is no guarantee he might not skew the guessing unconsciously, and this is a very real possibility.

That depends on whether Sandsted can dowse, or not. If he can dowse, and choses to dowse the dates instead of just guessing, and is successful, then the test is not one of guessing. If you insist the test cannot be used for dowsing dates on coins, then please explain why it cannot be used for this purpose.

The number I will go with is (I believe) the same that would be required by the TBS in order to pass the Preliminary Test before going for the Randi $1M.

That would be 7 or more correct - to show compelling evidence for the dowsing claim.

The reason for choosing 7 is because it has a probability for a chance result of just slightly greater than 1 in 1000.

6 or 7 would be the result I would like to see, as well.

And when xxxx and I said: Further, I will go on record and say that, Sandsted's results as well as all of the individual guesses recorded here will generally fall in the range of 0, 1, 2 or 3 correct. Though I would not rule out 4 correct as a possible result and I'll go ahead and state that my estimate is 1-2 correct from Sandy, but no more than that.

I gave you ONE number, that I thought would be very compelling evidence to support Sandy's dowsing claim. 7

 

[aarthrj3811]

Hey af1733...In case you have not noticed we have been here since July 2005....We have not been deleted...We may be here for awhile...It is time that you put up some real facts or go away...We can read and understand English. What you have said is on this forum...To bad if what you have ranted about is going to sink your ship...Art

 

[aarthrj3811]

Hey SWR...As of 4pm the posts were there....If some of the people were banned from t-net is not my problem as I have not complained to the powers that be about anyone. What they said is there for all to read. Some of them are still here. Why would they have to defend themselves if what they posted was the truth?
Unlike others here I don't misquote people....At the start of each post is a statement that should tell people which thread they came from. You seem to have a problem with any Quotes that are made by Dowsers. If they don't want to be Quoted they should put a disclaimer in the post...how bout that...What do you think about the facts in my post?...Art

 

[aarthrj3811]

Hey SWR...I "guess" you don't understand real facts...If no one else responds I will "guess" that it makes no difference to them....Art

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

[aarthrj3811 Hey SWR...I "guess" you don't understand real facts...If no one else responds I will "guess" that it makes no difference to them....Art
****************

HI aa, just quetly watching. Keep pitching.

Don Jose de La Mancha Tropica Tramp Real deTayopa

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

=SWR link=
So Art...you are stating that the nameless quotes you've used are facts? I can see now how Real Facts easily confuse you
*************

LIKE??

Jose de La Mancha

 

[ClonedSIM]

I'm glad you posted all these "facts", Art. It means that if Sandy dowses less than at least 6 correct responses to Carl's coin test, he has proven that his dowsing is no better than guessing.

Thanks for clarifying that.

 

[aarthrj3811]

I'm glad you posted all these "facts", Art. It means that if Sandy dowses less than at least 6 correct responses to Carl's coin test, he has proven that his dowsing is no better than guessing.

Thanks for clarifying that.
Another guess to add tothe list....Thanks af....Art

 

[aarthrj3811]

These are some facts that some of you should read..

http://www.surveysystem.com/signif.htm
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040228/fob2.asp

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040228/mathtrek.asp

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v33/i1/p576_1

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030927/mathtrek.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

 

[ClonedSIM]

I'm glad you posted all these "facts", Art. It means that if Sandy dowses less than at least 6 correct responses to Carl's coin test, he has proven that his dowsing is no better than guessing.

Thanks for clarifying that.
Another guess to add tothe list....Thanks af....Art

Oh, this isn't a guess, Art. I read the "facts" you posted below and drew that conclusion. Now, if you're saying the "facts" you posted suddenly aren't actually facts, then I'm going to have to accuse you of twist-and-spin.

 

[aarthrj3811]

Hey af1733...I remember that after 50 or so times of asking for an exact number you gave me an exact number and I thanked you. What I am trying to point out that the number of hits for guessing seems to be a moving target. Why did all the numbers change between the two threads? How can you judge if someone is guessing or Dowsing if the rules keep changing?...Art

 

[ClonedSIM]

These are some facts that some of you should read..

http://www.surveysystem.com/signif.htm

This is something that you should have read when you were having so may problems understanding the stats in Sandy's test. Why are you only reading it now?
The 95% level comes from academic publications, where a theory usually has to have at least a 95% chance of being true to be considered worth telling people about. In the business world if something has a 90% chance of being true (probability =.1), it can't be considered proven, but it is probably better to act as if it were true rather than false.
I like this paragraph. Can you dowse accurately at least 95% of the time? If not, you shouldn't say you can.

These are some facts that some of you should read..

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040228/fob2.asp

This is an interesting article. Apparently, if you toss a coin into the air and try to keep it flat while it's in the air rather than flipping over and over, you can influence the outcome of a coin toss. Of course, if you read the article carefully, they didn't mention flipping the coin when they were talking about bias. All they referred to was influencing the result of the coin toss if you tried to keep it perfectly level. Who flips a coin like this?

And before you say anything, I know they said that a tossed coin is more likely to land on the face the toss started from. Of course it will, if you try not to flip the coin at all......

These are some facts that some of you should read..

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040228/mathtrek.asp

This was another interesting article, Art. They really went deeply into the actual motion of flipping a coin and what it does while it's in the air. Of the two studies mentioned, one concluded that Thus, coin tossing is almost random. A look at the spread in the way real people flip real coins indicates that heads and tails would each come up about half the time and the other concluded The bias isn't large, but recent experiments show it's there. Because it's very difficult to toss a coin "perfectly," this bias comes into play for just about any given coin toss. So essentially, there can be a bias for flipping a coin, but it's small enough that it's still equated to being almost perfectly random.

These are some facts that some of you should read..

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v33/i1/p576_1

This is only the description of a study that is password protected. I assume you can provide us the username and password, or copy the article itself? If not, this does not belong here.

These are some facts that some of you should read..

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030927/mathtrek.asp

Art, I know you well enough to know you didn't understand an single word in this article. But, let's use something you are familiar with. You went on and on earlier about how much smarted the casinos in Las Vegas are than any of us here. The thrust of this article concerns random number generators. If they were so inaccurate and biased, would RNG's be stuffed into almost every Vegas slot machine, as well as those at almost every casino in America?

These are some facts that some of you should read..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

This is a nice long article that says a lot of things, but I want to ask you on this one.
What are you trying to show by posting this link? What did you want people to learn from this article as it pertains to anything happening here?

 

[ClonedSIM]

Hey af1733...I remember that after 50 or so times of asking for an exact number you gave me an exact number and I thanked you. What I am trying to point out that the number of hits for guessing seems to be a moving target. Why did all the numbers change between the two threads? How can you judge if someone is guessing or Dowsing if the rules keep changing?...Art

The rules don't keep changing, Art, you just don't understand the numbers and you obviously didn't read any of the links you posted earlier.

The charts that Carl presented to you giving the odds of each number of correct answers that Sandy might give is correct.
If Sandy gets 6 or more correct, he has beaten the probability of guessing. Any less than that, he is right in line with the number of correct answers that can be had by guessing.

Some people wanted 7 because it would give a greater difference between Sandy's answers and guessing, but since he said he could do 60% correct, then 6 seems like a great number to shoot for.

 

[aarthrj3811]

af1733.....Why did the chances of probability change from the original post of this thread to post #2....Art

 

[ClonedSIM]

af1733.....Why did the chances of probability change from the original post of this thread to post #2....Art

They didn't.

 

[ClonedSIM]

Exactly how many coins did you find, and how was the test conducted?

Remember, since you're starting a new thread with this one, you might want to include all the information, and not just what you want to see.

And you never answered my question, Art.

 

[aarthrj3811]

They didn't.

If you say so af...Art

 

[aarthrj3811]

The first post all the guesses are from the Dowsing Doesn't work crowd..

1..So, you have a 98.7% chance of finding between 0 and 3 coins.
2..if you ran this test an infinite number of times it will average out 1 correct guess. That is the expected number of coins on average you'll guess correctly.
3..The odds of him dowsing say 5 or 6 is still so stacked against him that it probably WON'T happen in that instance.
4..I think you'd be lucky to get one in ten.
5..replications will converge asymptotically to the expected average of the binomial distribution, in this case 1.
6..As you can see, roughly 93% of the time you will experience Zero, One or Two Hits
Post #2 is after someone as agreed to a test...from the Dowsing Doesn't work crowd.
1..Great, so if Sandy gets 7 correct, we can both agree it was due to his dowsing ability?
2..confirming his own self-administered test results of 40-60%.
3..Hey Art, what you've obviously failed to notice is that Sandy himself said he expected a 40-60%
4..Actually, true guessing in real-world situations follows mathematical distributions precisely. If it did not, then the whole field of statistics would be bogus.
5..The exercise of putting a human through the process of "guessing" a series of trials in order to obtain GUESSED DATA for comparison, has ALREADY been accomplished. The data has been calculated precisely and has been given here in more than one posting. Further, the data that "might" be obtained from Sandsted guessing could very likely be flawed, when compared to the calculated data. You see, if he guesses and produces data, there is no guarantee he might not skew the guessing unconsciously, and this is a very real possibility.
6.The number I will go with is (I believe) the same that would be required by the TBS in order to pass the Preliminary Test before going for the Randi $1M.
7..That would be 7 or more correct - to show compelling evidence for the dowsing claim.
8..The reason for choosing 7 is because it has a probability for a chance result of just slightly greater than 1 in 1000.
9..6 or 7 would be the result I would like to see, as well.
10..And when xxxx and I said: Further, I will go on record and say that, Sandsted's results as well as all of the individual guesses recorded here will generally fall in the range of 0, 1, 2 or 3 correct. Though I would not rule out 4 correct as a possible result and I'll go ahead and state that my estimate is 1-2 correct from Sandy, but no more than that.
11..I gave you ONE number, that I thought would be very compelling evidence to support Sandy's dowsing claim. 7
I see holes that you could drive a semi though and not touch either side. I see words like follows mathematical distributions precisely, expected average of the binomial distribution, , if he guesses and produces data, there is no guarantee he might not skew the guessing unconsciously, and this is a very real possibility and in order to pass the Preliminary Test before going for the Randi $1M.