
The Inspection Paradox is Everywhere: a surprising statistical illusion - AllenDowney
https://towardsdatascience.com/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere-2ef1c2e9d709?source=friends_link&sk=a38a2925e44f481d27e5b2452128716a
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anotheryou
Missing the weirdest one, which I sadly can't find on the net right now
because I lost the name:

What's the average population size of alien planets when you are one in 7
billion having this question.

I don't quite get it together but it had 2 interesting problems:

\- It allows for a prediction with a simple size of just 1 which differed from
said sample

\- it's debatable if we should calculate with 7 billion humans or one
globalized "intelligent" race

If anyone could point me to a source to this I'd be happy :)

also related: the german tank problem [https://www.eadan.net/blog/german-tank-
problem/](https://www.eadan.net/blog/german-tank-problem/)

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danShumway
This is somewhat eye opening to me, in the same way that Miller and Sunurjo's
work was.

> _In other words, selecting which part of the data to analyze based on
> information regarding where streaks are located within the data, restricts
> your choice, and changes the odds._ [0]

I'm not particularly great at statistics, so I fall trap to a lot of these
kinds of misconceptions. I appreciate articles like this getting shared, it's
incredibly interesting.

[0]: [https://jasoncollins.blog/2018/06/28/explaining-the-hoACt-
ha...](https://jasoncollins.blog/2018/06/28/explaining-the-hoACt-hand-fallacy-
fallacy/)

~~~
murkle
Working link [https://jasoncollins.blog/2018/06/28/explaining-the-hot-
hand...](https://jasoncollins.blog/2018/06/28/explaining-the-hot-hand-fallacy-
fallacy/)

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dccoolgai
Interesting article, especially when you think about public polling (political
or otherwise). Polling data is going to be heavily biased with people who are
willing and have the time to be polled, which may be vastly different than the
audience you are trying to model. Seems like the author is talking
specifically about something a little more quantitative, but to the general
point about these kinds of samples being biased in ways that aren't obvious at
first, it has something in common.

