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- Identify a member of your group who claims to be able to
tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke. (Coke
Classic, that is; accept no substitutes!) Design and carry out
an experiment to test whether this is true. Remember that
one swallow doth not a summer make: Don't certify your
taste-tester just on the basis of one experiment. Decide
exactly what data you will collect and what you will do
with the data before you start collecting it. Also, remember
the story of clever Hans, and consider the benefits of a
double-blind study. (We also have RC cola available; if you
prefer, you may want to see if your taste-tester can
distinguish RC from Coke or Pepsi.)
- Apparently, the formula for Coke was changed because
taste tests showed that something like
of
Americans prefer the taste of ``new'' Coke to that of Coke
Classic. Discuss the wisdom of this.
- Why is there no such thing as Diet Coke Classic?
- It is interesting to get people's opinions on probability
paradoxes before and after an explanation. One student
student asked four people with different educational
backgrounds their opinion about the stick problem and
reported that they all said 1/2 but three of the four agreed
with 2/3 after an explanation. A school of psychology led by
Stanford Psychologist Amos Tversky have studied how
people answer probability problems and the effect or lack
of effect of courses in probability and statistics on their
answers. We will consider some of his work later.
- Referring to Nuclear reactor accidents the comment was
made "You can't second guess human stupidity with
numbers. Nor can you set numbers on something
completely unexpected."
- A student would like to have some explanation of the
doubling and splitting rules for blackjack that are claimed
to be optimal. We will consider this also later. Watching
the NCAA final four game, the same student comments "It
seems that the so-called experts (sport casters) always try
to support their theories and conclusions with stats.
Unfortunately, there are always statistics that contradict
the comments of the reporters.
- Most people felt that the ``reasonable doubt" should
depend upon the nature of the crime. Indeed a recent
news article claimed that it is understood in legal circles
that beyond a reasonable doubt means a much higher
probability in a criminal trial than it does in a civil suit.
However, one student felt that ``Whatever crime or
punishment is at stake, the theoretical amount of
reasonable doubt should remain constant"
- Another student wrote about the attempts of the lawyers to
appeal to the emotions of the jurors and the role that this
might play the concept of ``reasonable doubt". She
comments "I wonder if it is possible, or even likely, that
numbers can be assigned to emotions. Love is an emotion.
I have never once heard a friend say "Well, I'm 94.2%sure that I love Joe, but my reasonable doubt cutoff is
95%, so I guess I'll break up with him."
- A student gave in interesting analysis of an add by the
TVTimes which stated the following:
Recently, Music Plus ran ads in TV Times and the regional edition of
TV Guide, and measured response. Both ads featured an identical
coupon off and ran at the same time. The results speak for
themselves.
``TV Times was the clear winner. It generated almost four times as
many responses as TV Guide. That translates into more traffic and
more sales in our stores. I'm convinced TV Times is an excellent
medium for reaching Southern California consumers."
Read the current CHANCE news. Find an article that interests you and
suggest some further questions that you would like to ask the
persons involved in the research
Read Chapters 13, 14, and 15 of FPPA, and do the following review
exercises: 1,2,6,8 of Chapter 13; 2,5,7 of Chapter 14 and 1,3,8 in
Chapter 15.
Next: The binomial distribution
Up: CHANCE
Previous: The evil twin