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Quote by: Epistemologist  No, I don't think he really has a problem with Gaussian distributions, the concept of the t-distributions, and all that theoretical stuff. He has more of a problem with the actual practice of the statistics, saying that many statisticians aren't being ethical and taint the entire field, so these results ought to be scrutinized. Or at least that's basically what I was saying, particularly with respect to the statisticians who did this poll and the nature of the poll itself. |
While I do, in some respects, question the validity of the entire study of statistics, my particular issue with regard to this thread is the validity of taking such a small statistical sample (far less than one percent) and extrapolating it to apply to the whole population - particularly since the sample itself was not an accurate representation of the whole and, most certainly, did not include a significant portion of the population not even capable of "pre-marital sex," i.e. prepubescent children. So, to say that this sample can be extrapolated into "95 percent of Americans" is really ridiculous. Again, I don't have a problem with statistics in the sense of, for example, the results of the Census (such as x percent of Americans are between the ages of 18 and 44 or x percent of Americans are multiethnic) because, supposedly, all Americans were counted.
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Anyway, back on topic, I revert to what I was saying before that this supposed sexual promiscuity is morally wrong.
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Well, I was intentionally trying to leave the morality issue alone.