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Article #632

Re: margin of error

#632
From: r hardin
Date: Sun, 04 Oct 1992 00:56
14 lines
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>         "The margin of error for this poll was +/- 3 percent."

>I'd like to know what such a statement means in precise terms.  The
>Chebyshev inequality allows us to make statements like, "the
>probability that the measured value differs from the "true" value by
>more than D, is less than P."

It's worse that that, you can only say ``if thus and such has a
so and so distribution, then the probability ... etc''

You can't get a probability without a leading if, no matter how
much sampling you do.
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References: <POPAT.92Oct3125308@image.mit.edu>

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!rde!gator!fang!att!allegra!alice!rhh
From: rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin)
Newsgroups: sci.math.stat
Subject: Re: margin of error
Message-ID: <23792@alice.att.com>
Date: 4 Oct 92 00:56:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: alice.23792
References: <POPAT.92Oct3125308@image.mit.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
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