Not a desperately urgent request but a quick solution would be very nice - it's about a Biorhythm program

[Joep L. Blom]

On 01/11/10 20:50, rikona wrote:
> Hello Basil,
>
> Sunday, October 31, 2010, 11:38:59 PM, Basil wrote:
>
> BC>  On 01/11/2010 13:00, rikona wrote:
>>> Hello Basil,
>>>
>>> Sunday, October 31, 2010, 12:58:23 AM, Basil wrote:
>>>
>>> BC>   Read my response(s) to Ric.
>>>
>>> I did. I get it. You belive it works. My apologies for upsetting you
>>> by mentioning the science.
>>>
>
> BC>  What "science" did you mention?
>
> In the interest of brevity, I gave a short, but accurate, one-line
> summary. There are thousands of scientific journal papers, reports,
> and books re biological rhythms - it is quite a large field. Be sure
> to check Wikipedia re 'biorhythms' if you'd like a somewhat longer
> summary. Then check Wikipedia re 'biological rhythms' to get a brief
> intro to *real* biological rhythms.
>
> It is interesting to note that those thousands of scientific articles,
> which have analyzed **lots** of real data, for lots of people, using
> modern, very powerful analytical tools, and the 'biorhythm' cycles
> have almost never been seen statistically. I say almost, because a
> hormonal cycle in women is readily apparent in many studies, and is
> close in length to one of the biorhythm cycles. That one does have
> effects on behavior - but I probably don't have to tell you folks
> that. :-)) Note also that that hormonal cycle length can vary quite a
> lot in different women, and from time to time in the same woman, as do
> essentially all real biological cycles observed in people. The
> absolutely fixed cycle length, for all people, at all times, is simply
> nonsense.
>
> BC>  I have a very strong feeling that I am very safe in assuming that you
> BC>  believe what the bible contains is "science", right?
>
> That is sooooooo wrong it is hilarious! It is hard to imagine a way in
> which you could be less correct.
>
> BUT - it does suggest that you form very strong beliefs, which you are
> certain are absolutely true, on the basis of no factual information/
> material whatsoever.
>
> BC>  Read the book I mentioned in my response to Ric.
>
> Well, duh... of course I read the book... long ago. And many other
> scientific articles re biological rhythms as well. I have done my own
> experimental studies and analyses, with data collected from real
> people, so I have first-hand experience with this topic.
>
> Have you ever read any book, or report, or scientific journal article
> about *real* biological rhythms?
>
> BC>  That book contains a lot of statistical information.
>
> No, it does not. It contains carefully selected coincidences. If it
> was truly statistical data, it would have both cases where it did
> work, and cases where it didn't. Any cases that didn't work were, of
> course, not put in the book.
>
> Here's how to write your own book and be famous:
>
> Look up famous people and events, the date they happened, and the
> birth date of the people involved. Select *ONLY* famous people and
> well known events, because people will already have these in their
> mind and it will be more convincing to readers. Lots of folks love to
> hear gossip about acting/sports/etc stars. Avoid anybody/anything that
> was not a headline because this will not be as "impressive". The idea
> is to make your readers into believers. :-)
>
> Then run the cycles and see if any one of the three sort of coincide.
> If you run the proper numerical analysis, for the parameters in his
> book, you will see that this is not that difficult - there will be,
> statistically, many 'acceptable' coincidences. This not only makes it
> quite easy to find a couple of hundred examples to put in the book,
> but it also makes it certain that people will have a number of
> 'acceptable' coincidences in their own lives. This will assure that
> they will become believers.
>
> If a particular person/event does not happen to show an 'interesting'
> coincidence, do NOT put it in the book. You have to make it look like
> the method is infallible. :-)
>
> Why do this? Simple - he made a **LOT** of money selling many
> thousands of very cheap and easy-to-do analyses. It was a rather
> successful con job. :-)
>
> BC>  Enough statistics to even make YOUR mind spin out of control.
>
> An alternative title for the book might be "How to lie with what seems
> like statistics" - to paraphrase the more famous book. :-) It did not
> make my head spin, either. :-) My reaction was that is was a rather
> well done scam that would likely fool almost everyone. Why? Because
> very, VERY few people 'think statistically'. [In the area of risk, for
> example, almost everyone believes the level of risk to be quite
> different from the true statistical risk. But that's another
> discussion altogether...]
>
> I am surprised that someone like you, who has "worked for years in an
> organisation which dealt with nothing BUT statistics, statistics,
> statistics, statistics" would fall for such an obvious non-statistical
> scam.
>
Rikona & Basil.
I have followed this OT "discussion" for some time and as a retired 
neuroscientist I agree completely with rikona.
I had in my department on a wall in the corridor a table of 10.000 
random numbers ( actually pseudo-random as they were mathematically 
generated) and had indicated (circled) the 0,05 % significant numbers. 
You are surprised how many "significant" numbers are visible (500) and 
that is the level generally used in these "proofs". I don't know 
anything of biorhythms other than the standard rhythms (daily, weekly, 
monthly, yearly) of  several thousands of body parameters, biochemical 
or physical, but any relation between them and life events is based on 
chance and nothing else.
In science (at least my territory) the least significant value we used 
was 0.01 and only when use with sufficient numbers (> 1000) of measurements.
But I think we now definitively are much OT.
Joep