Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site gatech.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!wivax!decvax!microsoft!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!floyd!whuxlb!pyuxll!eisx!npoiv!npois!hogpc!houxm!hocda!spanky!burl!sb1!sb6!emory!gatech!spaf From: spaf@gatech.UUCP Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: Re: The Earth-Centered Universe Message-ID: <307@gatech.UUCP> Date: Tue, 19-Jul-83 21:36:17 EDT Article-I.D.: gatech.307 Posted: Tue Jul 19 21:36:17 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jul-83 03:02:40 EDT References: <341@houxz.UUCP> Organization: Georgia Tech, School of ICS Lines: 37 The implication was made that results which are significantly worse than predicted by probability should not be interpreted in a positive manner. I disagree with this. If you perform a carefully organized experiment and get results far from what you expected then you have gained information, although you must be careful how you interpret that information. As an example, consider a test of ESP phenomena. Suppose you go through a deck of cards and ask someone to guess the color of each card in turn. Suppose in 100 attempts the person got only 10 correct. Suppose this was a carefully controlled experiment and the results were repeatable. Would that indicate that there is no such thing as ESP? I don't believe so. It indicates something, although maybe not exactly what you wanted to prove. (BTW, I believe something like this has been shown to be the case. Some very reputable institutions doing ESP research have found "negative" receivers who show an ability to detect what something hidden from view is *not*.) Other examples would be like finding 90% less gravitational attraction at some point, or less electrical charge, or less free ions in solution, or whatever. It simply proves that something in your original theory was wrong, but you are measuring something that can be classed as information. Finding only 1 person out of 120 when you expected 10 is a possibly significant result, especially if you can extend the results to 120,000 test subjects. You just have to be a little more careful of the conclusions you draw. -- "The soapbox of Gene Spafford" CSNet: Spaf @ GATech Internet: Spaf.GATech @ UDel-Relay uucp: ...!{sb1,allegra}!gatech!spaf ...!duke!mcnc!msdc!gatech!spaf