Faced with an apparent pattern in any data, a key question is always: “Does this pattern represent something real, or is it just chance?” The simplest example: if I measure the heights of five men and five women and discover that the men tend to be taller than the women, I might be on to something, or I might just have some tall men and some short women in my sample. Based on this small sample, how confident should I be that men are in general taller than women?
面對任何數據中一種明顯的模式,一個關鍵問題始終是:“這種模式具有某種真實的意義,還是僅僅是偶然?”舉個最簡單的例子:如果我測量五男五女的身高,結果發現男人通常比女人高一些,那么我可能是發現了某種規律,也可能只是我的樣本中選取了一些高個男性和矮個女性。基于這種比較小的樣本,我是否應該確信男性一般都長得比女性高呢?
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