John Edser wrote:
> r norman  wrote:-
> 
> 
>>>>>JE:-
>>>>>Typically BOH replaces testable reality
>>>>>with just his "expectations" of it.
>>>>>In simple terms such an absurd event 
>>>>>is termed: propaganda. The master was Stalin.
>>>>>He turned reality into his "expectations" and
>>>>>millions perished.
>>>>
> 
>>>>BOH:-
>>>>John, please read up on simple probability theory before you write 
>>>>another post ridiculing expectations.  They have a precise
mathematical 
>>>>definition, which you seem to be totally unaware of.
>>>>As for testability, you might like to read up about a
wonderful subject 
>>>>called "statistics".  It's used to fit models to
data, which is an 
>>>>esential component of testing hypotheses.  One of the
things you can do 
>>>>is to estimate expected values (e.g. of allele frequency changes).
>>>
> 
>>>>JE:-
>>>>Once again BOH asks us to replace a testable 
>>>>reality with just his expectations of it. 
>>>
>  
> 
>>>
>>
> 
>>>BOH:-
>>>This is just a sematic game.  
>>
>  
> 
>>>JE:-
>>>No, it is your "game" of misrepresentation.
>>
> 
>>BOH:-
>>No, your statement confuses two uses of the word
"expectation".  I was 
>>using the word in a technical sense, which I then tried to explain. 
>>Your senetence seemed to use the non-technical sense of the word, which 
>>is a different matter.  Your sentence implies that in replacing the real 
>>world with something else, I am not making any allowance for the fact 
>>that the real world may be different.  This is not the case, and the 
>>implication in your sentence comes purely from the different uses of a 
>>word.  In that sense it is purely a matter of playing with semantics.
> 
> 
> JE:-
> If you are not just "replacing the real 
> world with something else" using the
> "technical sense" of the
> word "expectation", then what is
> the "real world" representation of
> fitness that you are estimating?
> 
My phrasing wasn't so clear - I am "replacing the real world with 
something else", but that I can still make allowances for it being 
different.  My point was that when "taking expectations", I'm not asking 
you to believe what I think will happen, instead I'm integrating a 
random variable over it's density function.

Bob

-- 
Bob O'Hara

Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 5)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
Telephone: +358-9-191 23743
Mobile: +358 50 599 0540
Fax:  +358-9-191 22 779
WWW:  http://www.RNI.Helsinki.FI/~boh/
Journal of Negative Results - EEB: http://www.jnr-eeb.org
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