Re: Statisically Insignificant

On 30 Mar 2006 08:30:44 -0800, "z" <gzuckier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip, material that this post is ignoring.]

I suppose you could ask, given X lottery tickets total, how many would
you have to buy to have your probability of winning be statistically
signficant, i.e. a less than alpha chance, where alpha = .05 or
whatever. Large number.

z,
This is a restatement of the mis-use of "significant" that
was cited by the Original Poster.

I think I could hear someone say, somewhat reasonably
and idiomatically, "How many tickets do I have to buy
in order to have a significant chance of winning?"
- In this case, 'significant' means *big*.

And you could say to that person,
"What do you mean by significant? 5%? 10%? 75%,
like the Australian syndicate achieved when they
tried to buy up one of every number in a U.S. lottery
that had 'rolled over' to reach a few hundred million?"

As I posted before, there is no connection to
statistical-significance. It seems that 'statistical' is used
as a generic intensifier, either in humor or by mistake.
It no longer relates to statistics.


--
Rich Ulrich, wpilib@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
.

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