Re: Kerry's Improbable Medals

From: Tom Seim (soar2morrow_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/13/04 

Date: 13 Sep 2004 12:40:13 -0700

Tim Wescott <tim@wescottnospamdesign.com> wrote in message news:<10kbcfi2v0k722d@corp.supernews.com>...
> Tom Seim wrote:
>
> snip
>
> > Combat medal prob = 0.174 (17.4%)
> > Five combat medal prob = 0.000159 (0.0159%)
> >
> snip
> > Tom
>
> From 2e-9 to 1.6e-4. That's a jump.
>
> Not very consistent, are you?

You have, clearly, not followed the reasoning:

1. combat medal prob (Pcm) = .174
2. five combat medal prob (Pcm5) = Pcm^5 = 1.59e-4
3. silver star prob (Pss) = number recipients / number of vietnam
combatents
= 21630 / 2594000 = .00834
4. bronze medal prob (Pbm) = 170621 / 2594000 = .068
5. purple heart prob (Pph) = 220516 / 2594000 = .085
6. three purple heart prob (Pph3) = Pph^3 = .000614
7. silver star + bronze star + 3 purple hearts (Psbp3) = Pss * Pbm *
Pph3 = 3.37e-7
8. Kerry's combat period = 132 days (including training)
9. Ratio of Kerry's service to average service (Pkr) = 132 / 365 =
0.362
10. Kerry's medal probability = Pkr^5 * Psbp3 = 3.37e-7 * 0.362^5 =
2.08e-9.
11. Inverted = 479,772,337 : 1
12. Number of Vietnam wars for this to occur = 479,772,337 /
2,594,000 = 185

Note that the probability of five combat medals (Pcm5) is not used in
Kerry's probability calculation AT ALL! It is just another factoid.

Tom

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