
A Failure of Intelligence (2006) - gwern
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/406789/a-failure-of-intelligence/
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paulsutter
Great article.

This aside is counterintuitive and interesting:

> Smeed...collected statistics...under an enormous range of conditions, the
> number of deaths in a country per year is given by a simple formula: number
> of deaths equals .0003 times the two-thirds power of the number of people
> times the one-third power of the number of cars. This formula is known as
> Smeed’s Law. He published it in 1949, and it is still valid 57 years later.
> It is, of course, not exact, but it holds within a factor of two for almost
> all countries at almost all times. It is remarkable that the number of
> deaths does not depend strongly on the size of the country, the quality of
> the roads, the rules and regulations governing traffic, or the safety
> equipment installed in cars

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Pamar
I was intrigued myself so I checked Wikipedia:

"The validity of Smeed's "Law" is a matter of debate:

Smeed's Law is a classic example of a statistical fallacy caused by
mathematical coupling wherein correlation is found between variables that
share common factors. A series of random numbers for inputs would generate the
same hyperbolic curve that Smeed's graphs show. The potential for this error
was first described by Pearson in 1897 [4]and has been restated elsewhere.[5]"

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autokad
a quick non sarcastic question, if the guns didnt make a difference, then how
did flying in tight groups help? (keep in mind this is only English night
flying bombers)

